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MANCHESTER WORTHIES 



ANI> THEIK 



FOUNDATIONS; 



OR, 

SIX CHAPTERS 



LOCAL HISTORY; 

WITH AN EPILOGUE, 



BY WAY OF MOKAL. 



BY EDWARD EDWAJIDS. 



MANCHESTEE: 
JAMES GALT & CO., DUCIE STKEET, EXCHANGE. 

1855. 



5 54-^ 

'OP. 






/ >■' 



CONTENTS. 



9i 



Page 

Chapter I. — Thomas la Warre and Hugh Oldham — Ti-ie 

Old Church and the Old School. . . 9 

Chapter II. — Humphrey Chetham — his life-battle and 

ITS object. 29 

Chapter III. — The Foundations of Humphrey Chetham, 

their growth and Financial History. , 29 

Chapter IV. — An endowed Libeary of the Seventeenth 

century ; ITS CUKIOUS MANUSCKIPTS AND FINE 
OLD BOOKS. A RATE-SUPPORTED LiBRARY OF 

THE Nineteenth century; its modern books, 

AND ITS COLLECTIONS ON COMMERCE. WoULD 

IT BE FOE THE BENEFIT OF MANCHESTER TO 
UNITE THEM? , .... 36 

Appendix to Chaptee IV. — On the Opeeation of the Public 
LiBEAEiEs Act of 1850, and on the mode 

OF WOEKING the AmENDED AcT OF 1855. . 57. 

Chapter V. — William Hulme and his Exhibitions at 
Beasenose. — John Owens and his College 
in Manchester. — The Future University 

OF ]\f ANCHESTEli 62 



IV. 

Pagb 

Chapter VI. — The minor Charitable Foundations and 

Bequests of Manchester Worthies. . . 68 

Epilogue. — The Moral of the Story. ...... 80 

Appendix A. — List of the Principal Authorities cited 

OR referred to in the preceding pages-. . 86 

Appendix B. — Regulations and Instructions concerning 
Applications to the Charity Commissioners 
FOR England and Wales, under -'The 
Charitable Trusts Act, 1853," (16 & 17 
Vic. c. 137.) — Applications for Inquiry 
OR Relief respecting any Charity. . . 87 



PEEFACE. 



The few pages which follow, originated in the casual remark of 
an accomplished American friend, in whose company the writer 
had the pleasure, nearly two years smce, of visitiDg the fine 
" Old Church " and the old Hospital and Library of Humphrey 
Chatham. As we were leaving the latter, on our way to 
visit a cotton mill, my friend said : — " This is so curious a 
thing to see in Manchester, that I am sure some account of it 
would interest many of us, on the other side." 

The observation led (after many delays on my part) to a 
notice of Chetham's life, and of his noble Foundation, which, at 
first, was sketched merely as a piece of local antiquarianism, 
bnt, almost insensibly, as T proceeded with the examination of 
the mass of curious papers left by the Founder and his 
executors, — access to which was most liberally accorded to me, — 
and discovered matter of an interesting kind, (interesting, at 
least, in this locality,) which had previously been either overlooked, 
or, as I thought, somewhat misrepresented, my sketch became 
a paper of far greater length than I had contemplated, and 
trenched unavoidably on matters of controversy, which were 
quite beyond the pale of its original design. 

On one point, having too confidingly followed a statement 
made by the Charity Commissioners of 1825, I was led into an 
error, which I have gladly taken this opportunity of correcting, 
as far as the acceptable, though very meagre, information on 
that head which I have received from another quarter, enables 
me to do. The point, however, remains still in some doubt, 
from lack of that publicity in the affairs and administration of 
public trusts, the vital importance of which it is the chief aim 
of these pages to enforce. 



Becoming thus more diffuse, and of wider scope, than had 
been intended, the portion descriptive of the Chetham Foundations 
was contributed to the New York Literary Gazette, and was 
pubHshed in several numbers of that journal, during July and 
September of last year ; and the portion relating to the other 
Foundations, and to the general question, was published in the 
British Quarterly Beview of the following October. 

Whether be well or ill founded, the opinion I have formed, 
that it would be clearly for the promotion of Chetham 's inten- 
tions, and as clearly for the general advantage of the community, 
that his Free Hospital and his Free Library should be severed, 
and the latter united with that other Free Librar}^ which Man- 
chester owes to the energy of one of its most distinguished 
citizens, (and which the Corporation now maintains under the 
provisions of the Libraries' Act,) I trust that, at all events, a 
more popular account of these institutions than has yet' appeared, 
cannot but be an acceptable, though a very bumble, piece of 
public service. The arrangement I have ventured to advocate 
may, in this instance, be long postponed, or may never be 
effected. If accomplished at all, it must be by cordial co-opera- 
tion between the eminent men, who are now Chetham's Feoffees, 
and the public at large. By a generous public spuit, and by 
hearty willinghood, it might easily be done ; but never by angry- 
controversy, and attempted coercion. The present Feoffees are 
men, too cultivated and too high-minded to be, on the one hand, 
brow-beaten into a measure, by whomsoever supported, of the 
wisdom and expediency of which they are not themselves con. 
vinced ; or, on the other, to be deterred by dread of innovation 
from a step which they may come to think true to the spirit 
of their trust, although not provided for in its letter. 

But, be this as it may, the more important question remains 
behind, in what manner the intentions which have actuated 
the Legislature in its recent enactments regarding " Cbari table 
Trusts," may best be brought to bear practical fruit in the ap' 



Vll. 

proved administration generally of the " Manchester Foundations," 
and, in particular, of that most important and pregnant 
endowment, the Hulme Scholarships, the present administration 
of which affords an example of total disregard, alike of the 
Testator's intentions, and of the wants of the Community he 
designed to benefit. 

In that discussion, whenever it may come, it will not be 
for me to bear any prominent part. The question will have 
to be decided by persons whose deservedly influential position 
gives weight to their opinions, and authority to their actions. 
But, just as in a campaign there must be generals to command 
the whole army, officers to head regiments, soldiers to win 
battles, and also pioneers to open the trenches, sappers to work 
the mines, engineers to make the escarpements, and fatigue- 
parties to carry the earth-bags and fascines ; so in the agitation 
of public questions, there must be not only men qualified to 
be leaders when those questions become ripe for final decision, 
but also the humble pioneers, working in obscurity, yet helping 
to create that array of public opinion which gathers force by 
degrees until it comes to be irresistible. 

If, in this controversy, I can render service — not unuseful, how- 
soever obscure — by carrying my quota of faggots or of gabions, 
over which better men may pass to the decisive onset, I shall 
be well contented. On great educational questions, such as 
these, when battle is once fairly joined, the struggle may be 
long and hotly contested, but the victory is as certain as is the 
ultimate issue — in a God -governed world, — of that mighty 
struggle between the vital principles of Civilization and those of 
Barbarism, on which the eyes of all men are now so anxiously, 
yet hopefully, fixed. 

Old Traffobd, 

10th August, 1855. 



MANCHESTER WORTHIES, &c. 



CHAPTER I. 



THOMAS LA WAEEE AND HUGH OLDHAM — THE OLD CHURCH AND THE 
OLD SCHOOL. 

In that remote old world to which famous " Domesday survey" carries 
us back, and to which in the middle of this nineteenth century, and 
in the heart of this restless, innovating, and ever-toiling Lancashire 
of ours, so few things else do carry us back, — although it needs no 
very great or keen insight to discern there the first germs of some of 
the best of our present possessions, — we find that Manchester had 
two churches, St. Michael's and St. Mary's ; and these churches were 
endowed in common with a "carucate" of land in "Kirkman'sHulme." 
The former, and the more ancient one, was probably situate within the 
precincts of Alport (the two historians of Manchester, Whitaker and 
Hibbert Ware, agree in the conjecture, that " Knott Mill Fair" was 
originally commemorative of its feast of dedication) ; and the other 
seems to have occupied a portion of what is now called St. Mary's 
Gate. All else respecting them is almost too vague to give support 
even to a conjecture. There is, however, reason to suppose that, as 
the town extended itself In a northerly direction, the habitations 
which had made "Alport" a village, Avere gradually abandoned, 
and the older of the two churches was allowed to fall into 
neglect — a fate which was probably accelerated by the rivalry of ^le 
two Cluniac oratories or cells of Ordsall and Kersall. The town 
came to be a mile, perhaps, north of its ancient site, and hence the 
necessity of the newer church, which was dedicated to St. Mary. As 
to that other old church, which some historians have spoken of as 
•' St. Matthew's" or " Aca's Church;" — whether it w^ere a church at 
all; and if it were one, whether or not the chantry, mentioned in 
the inquest of 1535 as " Grell's chantry," had been founded out of 
its former endowment (as was not unfrequently the case, when from 
any cause a ehurch fell into ruin) ; — here, too, all is but guess-work.H« 

* All that is known, however, or can be plausibly conjectured, will be found at great length 
in Dr. Hibbert Ware's excellent work : The Ancient Parish Church of Mancliester, and 
ivhy It was CoUegiated (1848). 



10 

But we know well tliat from these obscurer times down to the 
beginning of the fifteenth century, Manchester was becoming, in 
every generation, both more i)opulous and wealthier. EveryAvhere 
the yeoman pox:)ulation of England was rapidly increasing. Here, 
and in many places besides, the husbandman was becoming an 
artisan, the artisan a yeoman, and the yeoman a wealth}'- trader. 
At length came in the Flemish manufactures, and the woollen trade 
took a deep root in Manchester. The village of former times was now 
a large and thriving mercantile town, and the centre of an extensive 
agricultural parish. 

Meanwhile, the endowments of the church had thriven too, and 
much of them had been absorbed by priests and rectors who were 
non-resident, and were engrossed in secular avocations. As was said 
in the famous "Apology for the Lollards," attributed to Wycliffe, " Now 
almost is there no worldly business that ministers of the altar are 
not employed in . . . whereof it followeth that they live contrary 
to Holy Writ, and to the decrees of old fathers." Many and 
reiterated were the complaints; numerous and long enduring the 
delays interposed in the way of redress ; but, at length, a mse, able, 
and powerful reformer arose — as many such have arisen, and those 
amongst the best of their kind — in the bosom of the Church itself. 
Not content with complaint or protestation, he set to work vigorously 
to get new powers and new men — increased revenues and effective 
control over their application — permanent provision for the adequate 
celebration of divine worship, for due hospitality, and for the support 
of the poor ; — in a word, for the earnest and true " cure of souls," 
according to the best hghts of that day. Hence arose the collegiation 
of the Old Church of Manchester, at the instance of Thomas, twelfth 
Lord La Warre, and Rector of Manchester. 

Thomas La Warre felt, with WycUfFe, that " lords have their high 
states in the church, and lordships, for to purvey true curates to the 
people, and to meynteyn them in God's law, and punish them, if they 
fallen in their ghostly cure, and that by this they liolden their lordships 
of God." After conference with the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry 
(his diocesan), and others, he petitioned the king (Henry V.), and ob- 
tained letters patent giving poAvers " to erect the church of Manchester 
into a Collegiate Church, to consist of one Master or Warden, and as 
many Fellows, severally Chaplains, and other Ministers, as to the 
Bishop and his co-trustees, and to the said Thomas La Warre might 
be deemed expedient ; to enable the Warden and Fellows to hold 
and appropriate to their purposes, certain messuages and lands, &c., 
notwithstanding any law of Mortmain existing, or future." These 
letters patent were dated 22nd May, 9 Henry V (1421). The consent 
of the parishioners was signified by solemn declaration, signed and 
sealed in the Parish Church on the 14th of the following month; and 
the charter of foundation was granted by the Bishop of the Diocese, 
on the 5th of August. It recited that " the Church of Manchester 
had in by-gone times been ruled and governed by Rectors, of whom 
some never, others very rarely, heeded personally to reside in the 
same, but caused the adminicle" (or curacy) " to be served by remotive 
stipendiary chaplains, removing the profits and oblations of such 
church to their private uses, according to their own pleasure, from 



u 

tlie daily absence of whom followed a neglect of the cure of souls," 
&c.; and it then rehearsed and confirmed the provisions of the 
letters patent of the king. 

On the 8th of November of the year following, Thomas La Warre 
infeofFed to the use of the church thus collegiated, divers messuages 
and lands, of which the principal portions were these : — 

.1. The carucate of land granted to the Church of Manchester 
before the Conquest. 

2. The glebe land in Deansgate, known as " The Parsonage." 

3. The "Baron's Hall and Baron's Yard," intended to be the 
residence of the Warden and Fellows, and now well-known as 
" Chetham's Hospital and Library," with various smaller messuages 
in other localities. Lord La Warre did not long outlive the noble 
foundation by which he had sought to transfer the right of advow- 
son, and with it the appropriation of endowments, from the baronial 
patronage of his heirs and successors to a capitular body, in order to 
" the augmentation of divine worship in the Church, and a more 
propitious regimen of the cure of souls of the parishioners of the said 
church, and a relief of the state of the parishioners themselves." 
However he may have hesitated to follow WyclifFe and " the Lollards," 
in their bold reformation of corrupted doctrine, it is clear that he was 
thoroughly of the same spirit with them in their detestation of 
clerical secularity and pastoral neglect. He appears to have died in 
the 6th year of King Henry VI (L428). 

But now, as ever, the work of reform was but begun, and the end was 
far distant. It was the fortune of the Manchester Collegiate Church, 
as of other mundane institutions, to have periods of brilliancy and 
periods of deep gloom; to render at one time real and eminent services 
to the community ; to be obnoxious at others, to stern and deserved 
rebuke; to be, in one age, presided over by men who would have 
adorned the very highest place in their sacred profession, and in 
another, to be swayed by the stormy passions or impelled by the base 
avarice of men who would have cast a stain upon any, the humblest 
of callings. 

The Collegiate Church had passed through the trying period of 
the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but it was dissolved in the 1st 
year of Edward VI. (15-17) ; the college was turned into a vicarage, 
and the lands were granted to Edward, Earl of Derby, subject 
to certain charges and pensions. Under Mary, however, it was re- 
established; the deeds of alienation were recalled — except as to the 
Collegiate House (the old " Baron's Hall" of the Greslcys and La 
Warres), — and the priests' chauntries were restored. ' Lawrence 
Vaux — a zealous, and, it is said, learned Catholic — was appointed 
Warden, but he was expelled and imprisoned under Elizabeth, and 
appears to have died in Westminster Gate House, denuded of the com- 
mon necessaries of life. Thomas Herle succeeded Vaux, and in his 
wardenship the services of the church were neglected, the clergy 
disgraced, the town convulsed — even to open riot — by religious 
animosities, and the revenues squandered by the granting of leases 
inordinately long, at rents utterly inadequate. In 1576 the abuses 
had reached so high a pitch, that urgent representations were made 
to Burleigh and Walsingham, which soon led to Herle's suspension, 



12 

and ultimate expulsion from the office of Warden, and eventually, to 
the granting of a new charter — granted, it may he fairl}-- said, to 
reform abuses which had been connived at and nursed by the very 
power that granted it — under which instrument John Wolton (after- 
wards Bishop of Exeter), was the first Warden. Bishoj) Wolton was 
succeeded by Thomas Chadderton, also raised to the episcopate in 
1595 ; and he by John Dee, famous in his da}^ as a mathematician, 
and more famous since, as a " discourser with spiiits." 

Dr. John Dee was succeeded by a man, whose Avardenship 
was disgraced by even v/orse abuses than those which had stained 
the wardenship of Herle. Duties unperformed and revenues misaj)- 
propriated, were in this case combined with irregularities of even a 
more scandalous description. There was reason to believe that the 
chief offender — like a too celebrated clerical ]Dluralist of our own 
da}' — had never been in legal possession of his office at all, and that 
by a vigorous i^rosecution of the appeal to the crown, not only might 
the town recover those spiritual advantages of which it had been 
partially deprived, but religion itself might be freed from a great 
scandal. 

Dr. Richard IMurray — an oifshoot of the house of TuUibardine and 
Athol, and an obsequious coiu-tier of King James I. — had obtained 
from that monarch a grant of the wardenship of Manchester, in the 
year 1608. By the charter, it was incumbent on the warden to take 
an oath on his introduction, that he would observe the statutes, and 
inter alia, pa}^ certain fines for every day (over and above a fixed 
period) on which he should be absent. To save the fines, Dr. Murray 
avoided to take the oath. He appears to have been more at home at 
Court than at Church, but to have borne much the same character at 
both, if we may judge by a characteristic jest recorded to have been 
uttered by his royal patron, on Murray's preaching before him from 
the text, Rom. i. 16, " / am not ashamed of the gosjjel of Christ." On 
seeing the preacher after the sermon, the king is said to have 
exclaimed, " By my saul, mon, if thou art not ashamed of the 
gospel of Christ, the gospel of Christ may weel be ashamed of 
thee."=i^ That under such a head grave abuses should be complained 
of in the collegiate body was in the natural course of things, as it 
also was that in those days of passionate controversy and rampant 
priestcraft an attempt should be made to turn the tables on the com- 
2)lainants "b}'' fixing upon them the stigma of Puritanism. 

Amongst the papers of Humphrey Chctham, which are still extant, 
there are many graphic letters on this subject, addressed to him by 
Richard Johnson, one of the Fellows of the College (afterwards the 
first librarian of Chetham Library), and an active promoter of the 
proceedings against Murray. Whilst those proceedings were still 
pending in the High Commission Court, Johnson had to defend liim- 
self against charges of preaching too much, and ]Dreaching unsur- 
pliced, of administering the Sacrament in a wrong part of the church, 

* Dr. Hibbert Ware discredits this story (first recorded by Holling^vortli) on the ground of 
its profanity. But an objection of this kind, if applicable, vrould make sad havoc of the court 
history of James I. ; and the story itself will appear probable enough to the readers of the 
correspondence referred to in the text, between K. Johnson and Humphrey Chetham, pre- 
served in the Chetham archives. 



13 

and the like ; and he often expresses his anticipation of the severe 
censure of Archbishop Laud upon such practices. At last he writes 
to Chetham: — " Thus fiirr enemyes have prevayled that I must not 
preach any more at Gorton without a surplesse, that I must not 
preach at 9 o'clock in ye morning at Manchester, and that I must not 
administer the Sacrament to any one out of the quire," 

Meanwhile the suit against the Warden dragged Avearily on. 
Chetham complains to his friend that he does not write often enough 
about his progress. Johnson replies, that " from the uncevtaintie of 
all things I was afraid to say too much least I should make myselfe 
a new labour to unsay it againe." But at leugtli (in July, 1635) he 
writes: — "I have heere sent you downe the decree of the court [by 
which Dr. Murray was excommunicated, deprived of his wardenshij), 
fined £2,000, condemned in expences and costs of suit, and com- 
mitted to the Gate-House^=] ... but whether any of this will 
stand except the deprivation, God knoweth; neither had that ever 
been done whilest the world had stood, had [not] my paynes and 
charges, and friends also, been the greater. ... I am j)erswaded 
we shall never have a penny. There is but an hundred marks allowed 
by the court, which the officers conceive to be by much too little 
for themselves. ... I confosse with that which I boiTowed Avhen 
I came up, it hath cost me thirtie pounds since I came, but I must 
be content since God hath cast mee into these troubles. I doe owe 
more to him than all this money cometh to, and myne honestie is 
more worth, and I thank God my credit is yett more worth ; I have 
had small help lienun, and youre helpe and encouragement hath 
been the greatest o. any which I have had from any creature, for 
which I rest your servant. Y^ borrower is a servant to ye lender; 
and I shall, as is my dut}^, pray for you, and if my neighbours doe 
assist me, I will with God's grace see you payd ; only I crave your 
patience for a little time ; I am as sorrowfuU and melancholy as may 
bee that I cannot come home, for if I should come before the patent 
for the newe foundation bee drawn, in the drawinge whereof I think 
I shall have the greatest hand (but in this I desire to be concealed) 
things may be worse ; and therefore, though sorely agaynst my will, 
I am constrained to stay. The warden's excommunication is taken 
off already, the mitigation of his fine is reserved to the next court 
day. I think it will be taken all, or for the most part all off. INIr. 
Herrick nowe is not so likely to bee Avarden ; it is uncertain who 
shall have it, I pray God send us an honest man." . . . And he 
concludes with a request (for the neglect of which I am grateful 
to Chetham) " I pray, S^., doe as much for this letter as I did for 
yours, sacrifice it to Vulcane." 

A month later, — Chetham in the meantime having alluded to 
reports that were current as to Dr. Murray's restoration to the 
wardenship — Mr. Johnson writes: — "I think it [the warden's 
return] as unlickely as for a man if hee should with the devill have 

* By a most singular euphuism, this sentence is transformed in Dr. Hibbert Ware's 
* History of the Collegiate Church,' into the ' Retirement of Dr. Murray.' This phrase 
occurs three times, (pp. 148, 151, 391), and the real character of the ' retirement' is nowhere 
indicated. Only one letter of this remarkable correspondence is cited, and that imperfectly, 
and at second hand. 



14 

been cast into hell, to come to heaven. ... I fear the Archbishop, 
(he adds) for all his former shewes, studdyes for the pomp of the 
future -warden, and to pleasure some chaplayne of the king's, or his 
owne -with ye place. God be merciful unto us." 

In 1035, however, the new charter passed the Great Seal, and 
Bichard Heyrick was appointed Warden, much to Chetham's grati- 
fication. He^Tick was a man of great ability, and had a decided 
leaning towards the Puritans. It was his fortune to preach trumpet- 
toned sermons from the Manchester pulpit on several great occa- 
sions during the struggle for our liberties, — not without result in 
the increase ot the local adherents to the Parliament, — and to live 
long enough to deliver from the same pulpit another eloquent dis- 
course in honour of the " Happy Restoration." 

Under the new charter, which Chetham so zealously promoied, 
no Murrays have disgraced their sacred functions by shameful 
unjEitness and gross corruption. Nor, during more than two centuries 
has any Warden been appointed in liquidation of a royal debt to a 
goldsmith, or by way of salve for the loss of a promised lay-j)refer- 
ment, the holder of which did not die so opportunely as was 
expected. During this long period the Wardenship or Deanery of 
Manchester has been almost uniformly held by men distinguished 
both for ability and piety. Some, like "silver-tongued Wroe," have 
been chiefly eminent in the pulpit: others, like Stratford and Peploe, 
have done good service to the community by their zealous efforts to 
raise its moral tone, and to multiply its works of charity. Many have 
been (as some are now) conspicuous for their attainments in scholar- 
ship and literature. (That, for instance, is a powerful hand, 
Avell exercised in polemics, which — at an earl}' stage of the long con- 
test, resulting eventually in the Manchester Rectory Division Act — 
sped the arrowy shaft: — " Would not the following of Lord de la 
AVarre's generous example be even better than squabbling over the 
spoils of his benefactions?") Some have even been most eminent for 
their adherence to the principles of religious Hberty, and, like the 
younger Peploe, have sacrificed friendships and incurred hatred bj^^ 
seeking to widen the bands of Christian fellowship, — and this, too, 
at a time when j^arty spirit ran very high in INIanchester, and when a 
rancorous hatred of dissent and dissenters was the test and symbol 
of good churchmanship 

The men, in short, have been good men, but not sufficiently good 
to change a rigid and restrictive system into an expansive and genial 
system-; or to transform an institution, first cast in the mould of the 
fifteenth century, and then modified according to the circumstances 
of the seventeenth, into one adapted to the ideas, or meeting 
the exigencies, of the nineteenth. The two or three thousand in- 
habitants who composed the "large and populous" parish of De la 
Warre's day had grown into the 400,000 inhabitants of our ovm day ; 
the "250 marks" of yearly revenue of the one period had become the 
£6,000 a-year of the other; and yet it had also come to be matter of 
grave legal discussion whether the " cure of souls," spoken of in the 
charter, meant the pastoral charge of the souls of the j^arishioners, or 
the pastoral charge of the souls of the collegiates themselves. And the 
controversy was both sharp and long. 



15 

The Legislature Itself had not a little complicated the main ques- 
tion, by inserting in the Cathedral Act of 1836, a clause which (in 
contemplation of the subsequent erection of a Diocese of Man- 
chester) at once transformed the Warden and Fellows of a Collegiate 
Church into the Dean and Canons of a Cathedral Church ; and, 
whilst limiting the incomes of the future dignitaries, so as to assimi- 
late them with those of other Cathedral Chapters, proceeded to 
appropriate the prospective surplus, not to the increase of spiritual 
provision in the j)arish of Manchester, but to the augmentation of the 
general funds of the Ecclesiastical Commission. Such a misappro- 
priation was most justly resisted, as well by the Dean and Canons, 
as by many of those who on other points were opposed to them. 

The bare existence of a controversy like this is suggestive of many 
reflections and deductions which did not then gain utterance on 
either side. But with these we have no present concern. Briefly, 
it may be said to have resulted in the enactment of that Manchester 
Rectory Division Act, which was passed in 1850, after an expenditure 
on the part of its promoters exceeding £4,000. 

By this statute (and through the intermediacy of the Ecclesiastical 
Commission) the original parish was divided into districts, — each 
several district becoming a parish and rectory with " cure of souls. ' 
The remainder of the parish will be the future parish of Manchester, 
having the Cathedral Church for its parish church. The future dean 
will have the cure of souls within the mother parish, with the minor 
canons for assistants or curates. Four of the new rectories will be 
assigned to the canons. The revenues of the Chapter, received by 
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, are to be applied, in the first in- 
stance, to pay the stipends of the Dean, Canons, and Minor Canons ; 
the residue is to be applied exclusively for the cure of souls in the 
original parish of Manchester; that is to say, the endowments of 
all the rectories are to be raised first to £150 each at the lowest, and 
then, when funds will admit, to £250 each. Such are the principal 
provisions of this much-contested act of Church Reform* ; and it is 
certainly a large and liberal one. Manchester now possesses not 
only church reform but church dignitaries — enlightened, zealous, 
and highminded ; and such as lag behind few men in lending fur- 
therance to measures of practical educational progress. 

The bitterness of the contest has passed away, and all who were 
parties to it can now, it may be hoped, work together in all good 
causes. 

The Free Grammar School can also look back upon a long career, 
and the example of its Founder has been fruitful in inciting others to 
build upon his foundation. The good Bishop of Exeter, Hugh Oldham, 
(said, by some of his biographers, to have been born, like Chetham, 
at Crumpsall) was blessed with a sister, who, unsatisfied with merely 
helping him in well-doing herself, induced her husband to help him 

^ In fairness it should be admitted, that much of the bitterness and obstinacy of the con- 
test, is to be ascribed to the spirit in which some of the movers of the reform set to work. 
Their proceedings -were characterised by an abundance of the fortiter in re, not always by 
the suaviter in modo. The work done, however, is a good work, and of a sort which the 
soft hand is rarely known to accomplish without other help. 



16 

too. Joan Bexwyke (or Beswicke) and Hugh Bexwyke were not so 
much the trustees of Oldham, as they were his co-founders in the 
endowment, if not in the first erection, of Manchester School. 

The existing foundation-deed dates from 1525 (when Oldham had 
been dead nearly six j^ears), and recites that the founder had built a 
school and endowed it — 

*' For the good mynde wich he hadd and bare to the countrey of 
Lancashire, consyderyng tlie brynging u^^p in lernyng, vertue and 
good manors, childeryn in the same countrey, should be the key and 
grounde to have good people tlier, wiche hath lacked and wanted in 
the same, as well for grete povertie of the comii people ther, as allsoe 
by cause of long tyme passyd the teyching and brynging upp of 
yonge childrene to scole to the lernyng of gramyer hath not been 
taught ther, for lack of sufficient scole-master . . . . so that the 
children in the same countrey liavyng 2>vegnant icytte, have ben most 
parte brought up rudely and idilly, and not in vertue, connyng, 
litterature, and good maners." 

The endowment consisted of the Manchester corn-mills, with all 
their tolls and appurtenances, of certain lands in Ancoats and 
elsewhere, and of a burgage or burgages in " the Millgate." The sta- 
tutes directed that no lease of the school estates should be granted 
for more than ten years ; that the salary of the high master should 
be iGlO a year, that of the usher £"o, and that of the receiver £\ ; and 
that when the surplus revenues should amount to X40, they should 
be applied to the exhibition of scholars at Oxford or Cambridge. 

Bishop Oldham was one of the many eminent ecclesiastics who 
owed the first steps of their preferment, — and possibh^ in his case, 
education itself, — to the munificence of Margaret, Countess of Rich- 
mond, the mother of King Henry VII. He was the intimate friend 
of Fox, the founder of Corpus Christi College, at Oxford, and of 
Smyth, the founder of Brasenose. It is on record that it was by his 
counsel that Fox abandoned his original intention of founding a 
monastery rather than a college, — Oldham suggesting to him that 
instead of " building houses and providing livelihoods for a company 
of monks, whose end and fall we may ourselves live to see, it were 
more meet a great deal that we should have care to j^^'ovide for the 
increase of learning, and for such as by their learning shall do good to 
Church and Commonivealth" Nor did he content himself with giving 
good advice. He was a great benefactor to Brasenose; he con- 
tributed 6,000 marks towards the building of Corpus Chiisti, and he 
left to it a considerable bequest in land ; thus well earning the 
honourable mention of him in its statutes as ''hnjiis nostri collegii 
pracipuus benefactor," and the appropiiation by its founder of a scho- 
larship and fellowship for natives of Tjancashire. 

With Brasenose the Manchester School is more intimately con- 
nected by the munificent foundation, first (1679) of four scholarships 
there by Sarah Seymour, Duchess Dowager of Somerset, for scholars 



" out of the free school of Manchester," and afterwards (b}^ her will, in 
1686) of certain other scholarships ni Brasenose and in St. John's 
College, Cambridge, to be alternately filled by elections "out of 
Manchester school, Hereford school, and Marlborough school, fi^om 
time to time, for ever." These scholarships now amount to twenty- 
two, and vary in value from £36 to ^£52 per annum. 

The pupils of Manchester school have also had their share of the 
large exhibitions arising from the bequest of William Hulme, Esq., 
of Kearsley (to which bequest we shall advert presently), now 
fifteen in number, and worth ^6120 each per annum, with £3b more to 
each exhibitioner for books'^ — as well as of the six scholarships at 
Magdalen, founded by the Rev. John Smith, president of that col- 
lege, who died in 1658. 

Whilst the splendid provisions for the university career of pupils 
from the school founded by Bishop Oldham, attested the high 
position it had attained in public estimation, its own resources Avere 
largely augmented by the improved value of its lands, and more 
especially of its mill-tolls. But the latter, from their very nature, 
were as productive of ill-will and of litigation as of profit. The law- 
suits they gave rise to were almost interminable ; and when at last 
brought to issue, new suits seemed constantly to grow out of the 
ashes of the old.f Hence, in 1758, an Act of Parliament was passed, 
abolishing the custom of the compulsory grinding at the mills of any 
corn or grain whatever, except malt. The custom as respects malt 
was confirmed, and still continues. The toll was fixed at a shilling 
per load, instead of the accustomed twent^'^-fourth part. Powers were 
also given to the feoffees to sell land on chief for building purposes. 

When the Charity Commissioners reported on this school, in 1825, 
its total income was £4,408 17s. Hd., and its expenditure little more 
than ^62,500 a-year. " Whenever," say they, " the contemplated expen- 
diture for improving the residences of the masters shall have been 
carried into effect ... it Avill be a proper subject for the consi- 
deration of the trustees in what manner the surplus income can be 
most beneficially disposed of in furthering the objects of the 
foundation." 

When, however, the necessity for solving this problem arrived, the 
scheme proposed by the feoffees (in 1833, when the reserved fund 
exceeded £20,000), sanctioned by the Master in Chancery to whom 
their petition was referred, and confirmed by Lord Chancellor 
Brougham, failed to meet all its conditions, and excited considerable 
dissatisfaction, especially on the part of the Manchester " liberals." 

This scheme directed that there should be twelve exhibitions, of 
£60 per annum each, tenable for four j^ears. The objectors desired 

* 'Evidence of Alexander Kay, Esq., before Mr. Milner Gibson's Committee on Manches- 
ter and Salford Education,' Q. 2411, p. 395. 

t A very curious history of a series of such suits, against John Hartley, of Strangeways, 
is given in some of those Papers on the Archeology of Lancashire, by means of which Mr. 
Harland has stamped historic value on the columns of the Manchester Guardian. To 
another of these excellent papers, 'Recollections of a Manchester Nonogenarian,' 1st January, 
1853), I owe the anecdote of Thyer and the Grammar-school ' Saturnalia,' mentioned on 
a subsequent page. 



18 

to abolish the practice of the taldng of boarders by the masters 
(formerly abused to a gross extent, but which the uew scheme con- 
tinued under limitations) ; to replace the absentee feoffees by resi- 
dents of JNIanchester, and to increase the provision for elementary 
Enghsh instruction, as a branch of the regular duties of the school. 
This difference of view led to a litigation Avhich lasted nearl}^ thirteen 
years, and was not finally settled until it had been severally adjudi- 
cated upon by Lord Chancellor Cottenham, by Lord Chancellor 
Lyndhurst, and by the late Vice-Cliancellor of England. 

On one main point which underlay this controversy — whether or 
not there should be boarders ; and, if any, whether the exhibitions 
should, or should not, be open to them — these great lawyers differed. 
Lord Cottenham (1840) allowed boarders, but denied them exliibi- 
tions. Lord Lyndhurst (1843) allowed both. The Vice-Chancellor 
(11th Januar}', 1849) abolished boarders altogether, grounding himself 
on the fact, that the taldng of boarders had not been sanctioned by 
the feoffees (as Lord Lyndhurst had inferred), but had arisen ex 
mero motu of former masters. 

The decree by which the A^ice-Chancellor constituted a new Board 
of Trustees, and laid down a scheme for their guidance, was certainly 
designed to effect other and greater changes in the school. While 
the authorities of the school are, in this decree, rightly enjoined to 
continue the encouragement of classical learning, they are required 
to add largely to the ancient course of grammar school instruction, 
by appointing masters to teach, not only English Literature and 
Mathematics, but the modern Languages, and modern Arts and 
Sciences. So much in earnest is the decree as to these enlargements 
of the school system, that, as I read it, the fund for future exhi- 
bitions is non-existent, until there be a surj)lus income after the new 
branches of learning shall have been grafted ux^on the old stock. 
It apiDcars that the French language is taught in the school, bub no 
other modern tongue ; and that modern Arts and Sciences have still 
no place in the course. That the scheme is imperfectly fulfilled, 
and the duty which all the authorities OAve to the Court of Chancery 
and to the community of Manchester is not fully discharged until 
further steps shall have been taken in tliis direction, cannot, I 
think, be fairl}^ doubted. 

As to the present or recent condition and management of the school 
it may be stated that there are, or lately were, three departments, 
or schools : — 1. The Upper, or Classical School, with four masters 
and nearly seventy boys. 2. The Lower School, in which younger 
boys are prepared for the Ui^per and English Schools, with one 
master and also about seventy boys. 8. The English School, in 
which a single master has to toil at the impossible task of teaching 
Historj^ Grammar, Geographj^ and a multitude of other things, to 
nearly '^one hundred and fifty urchins of from eight to about twelve 
years old. For an English School, which forms part of a great and 
Venerable foundation in one of the chief cities of the realm, this is 
no satisfactory report. 

The amount expended annually in masters' salaries, is, according 
to a statement that has been printed, about £2,100. JB'rom such an 
expenditure much may fairly be expected. 



19 

The full effect of all the mtended alterations, time only can dis- 
close. That change, however, which affects the taking of boarders 
cannot but be productive of ultimate good. And it may be hoped 
that a pithy hint which fell from the lips of the Vice-Chancellor, in 
the delivery of his judgment, may also some day bear fruit. " It is 
part," said his honour, " of the facts of this case (and rather a la- 
mentable fact) that — the revenue of the charity depending very much 
on the profits of the malt-mill — a vast number of persons at Man- 
chester are exercising their ingenuity in discovering how they can 
subtract from the dues of the mill ; and it certainly appears to me 
that there is a tendency to cheat the charity at Manchester; it would 
he well to counteract that hj some act of liberality" 

Manchester School can display a good muster-roll of eminent 
scholars. Amongst them stand the names of John Bradford, the 
martyr ; of Robert Thyer ; of Whitaker, the historian ; of Dr. Cyril 
Jackson; of Dr. Thomas Winstanley; of Reginald Heber; and of 
Thomas De Quincey. 

Of its masters, the late Charles Lawson was, perhaps, the most 
professionally distinguished. Of stern temper, but of the strictest 
integrity, it is possible that he was more respected than loved. He 
kept the staff' in his hand till he had scarce strength to wield it, and 
thus, in some instances, became the cause of suffering as acute, 
though of a different kind, as that which he is said to have been but 
too prompt to inflict in his days of vigour. In those days Thyer 
gave him a rather pointed reproof, through the mouth of a school- 
boy, by composing a speech to be delivered on a public occasion, 
which gave impunity to the speaker ; — 

"Permit me, sir," said the boy, "under the protection of this privi- 
leged season, to ask you to accept a few gentle hints in return 
for the many broad ones you favour us with during the rest of the 
year. If the Spartans allowed their slaves once a j'-ear the liberty of 
saying what they pleased, I flatter myself tliat a claim to the same 
indulgence may be pardoned in a British school-boy. 

"To understand an author, you tell us, sir, that we should read in 
the spirit in which he wrote. How, then, can you expect the manly 
genius of a Tully, from the labours of a sour, domineering, flog- 
ging pedagogue? Pardon me, sir, if, upon so feeling a subject, the 
warmth of imagination has carried me beyond the limits of decency." 

Some forty years later Mr De Quincey experienced a different 
phase of the same stern discipline ; and he, who can at will paint 
for us his word-pictures with the broad and massive light and sha- 
dow of a Rembrandt, or wdtli the minute touch and marvellous finish 
of a Mieris, has thus depicted his experience : — 

" My guardians agreed that the most prudent course . . . was to 
place me at the Manchester Grammar School, not with a view to 
further improvement in my classical knowledge, though the head 
master was a sound scholar, but simply with a view to one of the 
school exhibitions. Amongst the countless establishments scattered 
all over England by the noble munificence of Englishmen and Eng- 
lishwomen in past generations foi' connecting the provincial tovrns 



20 

with tlie . . . universities of the land, this Manchester School was 
one : in addition to other great local advantages . . . this noble 
foundation secured a number of exhibitions at Brasenose College, 
Oxford, to those jjupils of the school who should study at Manches- 
ter for three consecutive years. ... At that time, I believe, each 
exhibition yielded about 40 guineas a-year, and was legally tenable 
for seven successive years. Now to me this would have offered a 
most seasonable advantage, had it been resorted to some two years 
earlier ... But at present I was halfwaj^ on the road to the com- 
pletion of my sixteenth year. ... As things were, delay had 
thrown the whole arrangement awry. For the better half of the 
three years I endured it patientl3^ But it had at length begun to 
enter more corrosively into m}-- peace of mind than ever I had antici- 
pated. The head master was substantially superannuated for the 
duties of his place. Not that intellectually he showed any symptoms 
of decay: but in the spirits and phj^sicai energies requisite for his 
duties he did ; not so much age as disease, it was, that incapacitated 
him. In the course of a long day, beginning at 7 a. m., and stretch- 
ing down to 5 p. m., he succeeded in reaching the farther end of his 
duties. But how? Simply by consolidating into one continuous 
scene of labour, the entire ten hours. The full hour of relaxation 
which traditions . . . and bye-laAvs had consecrated to breakfast, 
was narrowed into ten or even seven minutes. The two hours' in- 
terval from 12 to 2 p.m., was pared down to forty minutes, or 
less. In this way he walked conscientiously thi'ough the services of 
the day, fulfilling to the letter every section, the minutest, of the 
traditional rubric. But he purchased this consummation at the 
price of all comfort to himself; and, having done that, he felt himself 
the more entitled to neglect the comfort of others. The case was 
singular; he neither showed any indulgence to himself, nor, in 
thus tenaciously holding on to his place, did he (I am satisfied) 
govern himself by any mercenary thought or wish, but simply by an 
austere sense of duty. He discharged his pubhc functions Avith 
constant fidelity and with superfluity of learning, and felt, perhai)S, 
. . . that possibly the same learning united with the same zeal 
might not revolve as a matter of course in the event of his resigning 
the place. . . . But not by one atom the less did the grievous 
results weigh upon all within his sphere, and upon myself most 
ruinousl^^ . . . 

"At Christmas there was a solemn celebration of the season 
by public speeches. Among the six speakers, I, as one of the three 
boys who composed the head class, held a distinguished place ; and 
it followed also, as a matter of course, that all my friends congregated 
on this occasion to do me honour. What I had to recite was a copj' 
of Latin verses on the recent conquest of Malta. ' Milite Britannis 
subacta,' was the title of my worshipful nonsense. Probably 
there were, in that crowded audience, many old Manchester friends 
of my father, loving his memory, and thinking to honour it by kind- 
ness to his son. Furious at any rate was the applause which gi'eeted 
me : furious was m}' own disgust. Fnintic were the clamours as I 
concluded ray nonsense; frantic was my inner sense of shame at the 
childish exhibition. "f 

t 'Autobiographic Sketches,' ii. 60—80. 



91 

The time, I hope, will come, when Manchester School, adapting it- 
self to the true requirements of altered times, — as seen undistorted 
by temporary interests, narrow vicAvs, and passing prejudices — but 
retaining, and retaining Avith veneration, all that is valuable in the 
good old paths, will show a new muster-roll of names Avorthy to rank 
beside the Cyril Jacksons, the Whitakers, the Ilebers, and the De 
Quinceys of a former day. 



/ 



CHAPTER II. 



HUMPHREY CHETHAM— HIS LIFE-BATTLE AKD ITS OBJECT. 

The well-deserved niche in tliat grand old gallery of "The Worthies 
of England," which Fuller has accorded to Humphrey Chetham, has 
probably endeared his name to many readers who know but little 
of those " Foundations of Manchester" with which it was triply asso- 
ciated. Educated in the Free Grammar School founded by Bishop 
Oldham, he lent in his manhood a helpful hand towards the re- 
formation of the Collegiate Church of Thomas La Warre, and at his 
death bequeathed to his townsmen a third endowment worthy to 
rank with those enduring monuments of the public spirit of a pre- 
ceding age. 

The Manchester of to-day has no more striking contrast to offer 
to the eyes of the stranger who visits it for the first time, than that 
which presents itself on his turning from the busy thoroughfare 
called "Hunt's Bank," into the secluded monastic-looldng court of the 
Chetham Hospital and Libimy, locally known as "The College." A 
moment before, the most conspicuous objects were dingy factories, 
with their tall chimneys (pouring forth smoke as dense as though no 
Smoke Prevention Act had ever been heard of), and streets crowded 
with passengers walking as if for dear life ; and now nothing is visi- 
ble but a long and low building of the time of Henry VI., entirely 
devoid of "modern improvements," and wanting only a few of the 
ecclesiastics of the Collegiate Church of that day (for whose residence, 
as we have seen, it was built on the site of a much older baronial 
hall of the La Warres, lords of Manchester), to ]nake the spectator 
forget his own chronolog3^ Here, if anywhere, he may well recall 
" the olden time," and from the once romantic rock on which he stands, 
may (if he be blest with a lively imagination) look upon the scene as 
Drayton saAV it when he made the river Irwell i)roudly sing : — 



■ First Koch, a dainty rill 



And Irk add to my store, 

And Medlock, to their much, by lending somewhat more; 
At Manchester they meet, all kneeling to my state, 
Where brave I show myself. '* 

But, alas ! though the rivers still blend at his feet, all their beauty 
is for ever gone. 

* ' Poly-olbion,' Song 27. 



23 

To Humxjhi'ey Chetliam belongs not only the praise of founding a 
school and library for public use, but that also of preserving from 
destruction almost the only relic of antiquity — save its fine " Old 
Church" — of which Manchester can now boast. But for Chetham, 
the baron's hall and the priest's college would long since have given 
place to a cotton-mill, or a railway station. 

On entering the building, the visitor passes through the ancient 
refectory, or dining-hall, with its dais (beyond which is a veiy hand- 
some wainscotted room, where, "once upon a time," Raleigh is said to 
have dined with Dr. Dee — of magical notoriety — at that period War- 
den of Manchester), and he then ascends, by a venerable staircase 
and a fine two-storied cloister to the library, which occupies what 
were formerly the dormitories of the priests. The books are chiefly 
kept in wall-cases extending along the entire length of a corridor — 
somewhat of the shape of an L reversed, — and branching off into 
fifteen recesses, each with its little window and its latticed gate. So 
small are these windows, that they admit but a very " dim religious 
light," quite in harmony with the character of the building. At the 
end of the library is another fine oak-panelled room, with an oriel, 
lighted through stained glass, and containing furniture at least three 
centuries old. This is now the reading room (having superseded 
the recesses of the library itself) and a noble room it is for such a 
purpose. Original portraits — chiefly of Lancashire worthies — adorn 
the walls, and amongst them is a characteristic likeness of the 
" Founder." The dormitories of the boys, and the apartments of the 
officers, occupy the rest of the building. The school-room is of more 
recent erection, and abuts on the play ground of the Free Grammar 
School. 

Humphrey Chetham is stated to have been the fourth- son of 
Henry Chetham, of Crumpsall (once a little hamlet about two 
miles north of Manchester, but now almost absorbed into that 
much-devouring and still hungry town), where he was born in July, 
1580. In due time he was apprenticed to a linendraper or clothier 
of this town, and here also he established himself in business. 
His trading career appears to have been eminently and uninter- 
ruptedly prosperous. He combined the business of a money-lender 
(dealing largely in mortgages) with that of a wool-factor and " Man- 
chester warehouseman" — as the term is noAv — on an extensive 
scale. He had, too, considerable transactions with Ireland in ja.ni 
and linen. But his chief traffic seems to have been in "fustians," 
which he bought at Bolton, and sold in London and elsewhere. 

Having acquired considerable landed property in his native 
county, first (in 1620) at Clayton,-]- near Manchester, and afterwards 
(in 1628), at Turton, near Bolton; he soon attracted the notice of 

* Comp. Whatton, in ' History of the Foundations of Manchester,' iii. 142, and Raines (a 
better authority), in the notes to Gastrell's * Notitia Cestriensis,' ii. 68. 

t At Clayton Hall he succeeded the Byrons, -whose principal seat it was until they 
obtained the grant of Newstead Abbey. It was sold by Sir John Byron to ' George Chet- 
ham, of London, grocer, and Humphrey Chetham, of Manchester, chapman,' for £4,700, 
together with the ' impaled ground called Clayton Park, and the reputed Manor of Clayton.' 
The moat still surrounds what is left of the house (which is but little, though well preserved), 
now the property, ' by distaff,' of Mr. Peter Hoare. Clayton, too, is almotit swallowed up by 
one of the densest of the suburbs of Manchester, 



24 

the money-sccldng functionaries of Charles I., in the shape of a 
summons to pay a fine for not having attended at his majesty's 
coronation, " to take upon him the order of knighthood." It will be 
seen hereafter that it was his lot throughout life to meet his chief 
troubles in the shape of greatness thrust upon him. The first 
public matter of moment in which there is evidence of his having 
taken part w^as that reform of abuses, in the Collegiate Church, of 
which I have spoken in the preceding chapter. 

Whilst this question was yet in progress, he received intelligence 
that it Avas probable he would be nominated sheriff of Lancashire 
for the following year ; and he wrote to a friend then at court : — 
" Although the consideration of my unworthiness (methinks) might 
correct the conceit, yet out of the observation of former times 
wherein this eminent ofiice hath falne verie lowe, I cannot presume 
of freedome, but I am confident out of your ancient professed friend- 
shipp . . . that if anie put me forward, you -snll stand in the waie, 
and suffer mee not to come in the rank of those that shall bee 
presented to the king's view; whereby I shall be made more popular 
[i. e. conspicuous] and thereby more subject to the perill of the 
tymes." 

But his reluctance w^as of no avail. In November, 1034, Chetham 
entered on his office, and on the 13th of the following month 
received from his predecessor the first writ for Ship Money (" That 
word of lasting sound in the memory of this kingdom," as Clarendon 
calls it), so that its execution devolved upon him at the very thres- 
hold of his new^ dignity. His notes upon the wiit are still extant. 
They are not such as John Hampden would have made, had he 
stood in Chetham's place ; but they arc interesting for the contrasts 
they suggest between the Lancashire of the seventeenth century and 
the Lancashire of the nineteenth : — " The first thing," he says, " is to 
consider how much moneys will purchase a shipp of such a burden 
. . . the second thing is to aporeion . . . the same monies equally 
. . . and what part thereof the tounes ANdthin the county of Lane, 
ought to pay, for if you shall tax and assesse men accordinge 
to their estate, then Liverpoole being poore, and now goes as it were 
a beginge, must pay very little. Letters patent are now sent for the 
same toune ;* and if you shall tax men accordinge to their tradingc 
and profitt by shippinge, then Lancaster, as I verely thinke, hath little 
to do that waye." 

On this question of the apportionment of the levy, he consults his 
neighbour, Sir Cecil Trafford, of TrafTord, who replies (3 January, 
1635): — "I have perused our directions . . . for the levying of 
men and money within this county, and compared it to Cheshire, 
and find that sometime Cheshire hath byn equall to us, sometyme 
deeper charged, and someume this county hath borne 3 parts and 
Cheshke 2. Yet I (jleerely hold equallity is the best rate betweene 
the countyes, though Cheshire be lesser, yet it is generally better 
land, and not soe muche mosses and barren ground in it." 

These questions once settled (Cheshire being rated at ,£400, 
including £100 for the city; Lancashire at £498, including £15 

* /. e. Letters solicitiug charitable coatributions, such as afg now call 'Queeu's letters.' 



for Liverpool, and £8 for Lancaster), Clietliam proceeded rapidly 
with his portion of the levy, and incurred charges amounting to 
£22, as to which, he says, " I moved for allowance, but could gett 
none." 

In August, 1635, he received a second writ for ship money, by 
which the sum of £3,500 was levied upon Lancashire alone; and in 
the letter accompanying the writ, the lords of tha council write that, 
" To prevent difficulty in the dividing the assessments upon the cor- 
porate towns . . . we do conceive that . . . Preston may well 
beare £50 ; Lancaster, £30 ; Liverpool, £20 ; Wiggan, £50 ; and so 
on." The worthy sheriff resolved that this time, at all events, he 
would not lose his expenses, and so levied £96, in addition to the 
£3,500, to cover the charges both of the present and of the former 
levies. 

This piece of precaution was eagerly laid hold of by some who 
were his neighbours, but not his friends. Formal comx^laint was 
made to Lord Newburgh, Chancellor of the Duchy, who told 
Chetham's agent in London (his nephew, George Chetham), that 
such a proceeding wass neither warrantable nor safe : — " I tould my 
lord," writes the nephew, "it was conterary to your mind to trans- 
gress in any kind ; if you had not been misled by others you had 
not done this ; and then Mr. Blundell . . . tould my lord the 
countree was more troubled and grieved to pay that which you levied 
for charges than to pay the ^3,509 . . . and [that he had] asked 
the opinion of a judge, and the judge said ' Ytt was a starr-cliamber 
bussines.' " 

The issue was, that the sheriff was directed to repay the whole sum 
thus levied, excepting £3 15s. which had been abated to "poor 
people, and non-solvents." Chetham, nevertheless, delayed com- 
pliance with this order, and sent a messenger express to London to 
seek its repeal, furnishing him with a statement of the actual dis- 
bursements — amounting to £50 3s. 2d. (besides the £22 formerly 
expended, and another sum of £8 7s., spent in "the conveyance of 
witches from Manchester") — and with the instruction — " If I must 
returne the overplus which is remaining in my hands of the £96 
back againe, gett me directions how I must pay it." He had 
evidently a strong impression that the decision was unjust, and as 
strong an inclination to keep all he could. It appears, however, that 
it was enforced, and that he was compelled to bear all the charges 
himself. 

Whilst he was yet employed in the collection of the ship money, 
he had the misfortune to get embroiled with the College of Arms on 
that old and inexhaustible source of quarrel, the alleged apj)ropria- 
tion of another man's bearings. There seems to be no evidence that 
he used arms before his shrievalty, but it is certain that he believed 
liimselftobe descended from the ancient Lancashire family of his 
name, and that the arms he assumed had been assigned to him by 
Handle Holme, Chester Herald. =i' Chetham, as v/e have seen, was 
of opinion that the office of sheriff in former times had fallen "very 
low;" nevertheless, his own elevation to it did not fail to excite 

* Wliatton, 'Foundations of Manchester,' ii. 145. 
C 



jealousy and ill-will; and, unfortunately, there was indisputable 
evidence that the coat-of-arms, borne before him at the assizes, was 
" Chadderton's coat," Threatened with a prosecution before the Earl 
Marshal, he was advised to seek the friendly assistance of his 
presumed kinsman, Thomas Chetham, of Nuthurst, who formally 
recognised him as descended "from a younger brother of the blood 
and lineage of my ancestors of the house of Nuthurst." On applica- 
tion to the College of Arms, a long dispute ensued; but, ultimately, 
his zealous friends (of whom Richard Johnson was the most active) 
obtained the confirmation of the pedigree and arms which had been 
claimed. On transmitting the "trick" of arms, Chetham's correspon- 
dent writes : — " We could not give Sir Henry St. George (' Norroy') 
less than 10 pieces. We hope he is content.'though he said he hath 
had ^20 for the like." 

The worthy sheriff replies, — " They [the arms] are not depicted in 
soe good mettall as those armes wee gave for them ; but when the 
herald meets with a novice he will double his gayne." 

From proceedings recorded in the Exchequer it would seem that 
Chetham did not get fairly quit of the accounts of his shrievalty 
until March, 1610. In July, 1641, he was appointed " High Collector 
of Subsidies within the County of Lancaster," and by this appoint- 
ment was drawn into a long series of difficulties and disputes with 
various authorities, both ci^il and mihtary, during the strife between 
king and parliament. Some of his correspondence with Fairfax, and 
with other parliamentarian commanders, is still preserved. Not the 
least curious amongst these doeuments are some letters which were 
interchanged between him and Colonel Robert Duckinfield, with 
respect to the maintenance of the garrisons of Liverpool and 
Lancaster. " They are in extreme want of monies," says the colonel, 
•'and I will not suffer them to starve whilst I have charge of them." 
Chetham in vain represents that all the monies in his hands were 
long since exhausted, and entreats the Committee of Lords and 
Commons at Westminster "to satisfy Colonel Duckinfield cut of the 
assessment of some other county." The rough Cromwellian soldier 
stuck to his declaration, that if Chetham did not pay the money 
within eight days, " I will send four troops of horse into your county 
that I can very well spare." 

Although this particular infliction seems to have been escaped by 
a timely compromise, there is evidence that our worthy benefactor 
had personally his full share of the hardships of civil war. Amongst 
some papers endorsed " Severcdl notts of xiticiders for the generaU ac- 
compt of charges layd out for the ivarrs," he unites : — " Having lent Mr. 
Francis Mosley £760, and requiring the same of him again, he 
directed me to take up half of the said sum of some of my neighbour 
shopkeepers in Manchester, and to give my bill of exchange for the 
same, to be i)aid by his partner at London, Mr. Robert Law, upon 
sight of the said bill, and the other half of my money to be i)aid 
likewise in exchange a month after that. In pursuance of which 
directions, before I could eflect it, the said Mr. Mosley was proved a 
delinquent, and the said money intended for me, with the rest that 
he had in cash, in cloth, his debts, and debt books, and all other his 
goods, by order of Parhament, were sequestered and seized for the 



public use ; so, as hereby doth appear, there went to the Parliament, 
of my money, ^760, and were an accompt required of losses sus- 
tained bj the enemy (my house being three times entered and kept 
for a certain time, until all my goods, both within my house and 
without, were either spoiled or quite carried away), I could give an 
accompt to a very great value." 

It was also Chetham's lot to have a great many law- suits, some of 
which appear to have lasted until his death. One of these was oc- 
casioned by a dispute which curiously illustrates the disturbed state 
of the times. 

In April, 1648, the minister of the parish of Newton (in which 
Chetham had property) wrote to inform him that his nephew Travis 
had headed a large party in "Endeavouring to pull up Captain 
Whitworth's wear belonging to his mill." ..." There hath been 
great throwing of stones, to the hazard of several men's lives. Bul- 
warks and cabins for the defence of themselves in the way or manner 
of war . . . have been made. Such a contention as this was never 
seen or heard of by any amongst us." '*A.t length," he adds, 
" both parties were perswaded to yield thus far, untill your mind and 
pleasure were known about it." But, more than four years after- 
wards, we find proceedings still pending in the Duch}^ Court, 
between "Whitworth, plaintiff; and Chetham and Travis, defendants." 

Such incidents as this, and others previously mentioned, if taken 
by themselves, would seem to indicate in Chetham a somewhat too 
rigid working out of his motto. Quod tuum tene. Their true explana- 
tion, however, may, I think, be found in the fact that his munificent 
benefactions were the purpose of his life, not the compunctious 
prompting of his death-bed meditations. His charities had been 
acts before they became legacies. Not only are several wills still in 
existence which show that for a quarter of a century, at least, before 
his death, he contemplated the posthumous devotion of a large por- 
tion of his wealth to educational uses— the character and scope of 
which widened as his means increased — but there is also evidence 
that he maintained and educated many poor fatherless children 
during his life-time. He was therefore entitled to look upon himself 
as a trustee for the poor, and as engaged in the protection of their 
rights, whilst preserving (somewhat sternly it may be) the fruits of 
his industry from loss and waste. 

His death occurred at Clayton Hall, on the 12th of October, 1653, 
in the seventy-third year of his age. He died unmarried, and by his 
last will — made in December, 1651 — left considerable legacies to 
relatives, friends, and servants. He had already in his lifetime 
settled large estates upon his nephews, one of whom succeeded him, 
both at Clayton and Turton. 

By this will Chetham also bequeathed the sum of ^7,500 to be ex- 
pended in the foundation and endowment (after the manner therein 
directed) of an Hospital for the maintenance and education of forty 
poor boys for ever, and in putting them forth apprentices when of 
fitting age, unless " otherwise preferred, or provided for," and he 
directs that if, in course of time, any surplus revenue should accrue 
from_ any investment made in pursuance of such bequest, it shall be 
applied "for the augmentation of the number of poor boys, or for the 



28 

better maintenance and binding apprentice of tbe said forty pooi* 
bo3's " He also bequeathed -£1000 to be expended in books, "For, or 
towards a Library within the town of Manchester for the use of 
scholars, and others well affected . . . the Fame books there to 
remain as a public library for ever ; and my mind and will," he adds, 
" is, that care be taken that none of the said books be taken out 
of the said library at any time . . . and that the said books be 
fixed, or chained, as well as may be, within the said library, for the 
better preservation thereof. And I do hereby give . . . i:lOOO 
to be bestowed in purchasing . . . some fit place for the said 
library. . , . Also, I do hereby give and bequeath the sum of 4^200 
to be bestowed by my executors in godly English books, such as 
Calvin's, Preston's, and Perkins' v^'orks, comments or annotations 
upon the Bible, or some parts thereof, or . . . other books . . , 
proper for the edification of the common people, to be chained 
upon desks, or to be fixed to the pillars, or in other convenient 
places, in the parish churches of Manchester and Bolton . . . and 
the ehapels of Turton, "Walmsley, and Gorton, in the said county 
of Lancaster, within one year next after my decease -:<... And 
as touching and concerning all the rest, residue, and remainder of 
all my goods, chattels, plate, leases for years, household stuff, and 
personal estate whatsoever ... I do will and desire that all the 
said . . . residue . . . shall be bestowed in books, to be bought 
and disposed of, ordered and kept in such a place, and in such 
sort, as the said other books are to be, which are to be bought 
with the said sum of LIGOO formerly herein by me bequeathed, for 
the further augmentation of the said library."| 

The testator, during his life time, had been in treaty for the pur- 
chase of "The College," in Manchester, from the Parliamentarian 
" Committee of Sequestration for Lancashire," into whose hands it had 
come as part of the forfeitod estate of James, Earl of Derb}', that 
earl having inherited it from an ancestor to whom, as we have seen, 
it had been granted, by King Edv.-ard VI. on the first dissolution of 
the Collegiate Church. The agreement between Humphrey Chetham 
and the committee had even been drawn up and signed by several 
members, but on its being taken to another member, Mr. Thomas 
Birch, of Birch Hall, for his signature, that gentleman was pleased 
to endorse upon it certain conditions for Chetham's acceptance, 
which were thought to indicate distrust of his intentions, and which 
had the effect of defeating the project for a time. The will, however, 
directed the executors to make the purchase, if attainabie on good 
terms, and it was effected accordingly in 1054. 

* Many years, ho^vever. \rcre to elapse before this bequest was carried into effect. Good 
Henry Newcome's patience was sorely tried before the 'English Library' was fairly placed 
in the 'ancient chantry, called Jesus Chapel,' sold to the parish for that purpose (in 1665) 
by Henry Pendleton. Newcome seems to have taken the chief pains in the arrangement of 
the books; and he records in his Diary, under Dec. 11, 1661 :....'! was crossed because 
my mind was so foolish to be set on such a thing as to be the chief doer in setting up the 
books. . . . in that Ave could not bring the thing to perfection as we desired.' — Newcome's 
* Diary,' (published by the Chetham Society), p. 30. 

t This portion of the will is so iucorrectly printed by "Whatton as to be unintelligible. He 
seems to have copied the printed edition of 1791 without collation. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMPHEEY CIIETIIAM — THEIR GROWTH AJjD FINANCIAL 

IIISTOEY. 

In the founder's will twenty-four persons wore named who were to 
be the first Feoffees or Trustees of the charity, and it was directed that 
when this number should, by death, or otherwise, be reduced to 
twelve, they should elect other tvrelve ' honest, able, and sufficient 
persons, inhabiting within twelve miles of . . . Manchester,' to 
complete their number. These Feoffees were incorporated by royal 
charter in November, 1GG5, 

Having obtained possession of "The College," the Feoffees removed 
tliither the boys whom they had previously put out " to board " in the 
town, and set apart a portion of it for the reception of the Librar}'. 
The selection of the books to be purchased the Founder himself had 
confided to Johnson, H oiling worth, and Tildesley, being those of his 
Feoffees who Avere clergymen. On the 20tli of March, 10G2, Newcome 
diarises : — "This day ye matter of y^ library was fully settled between 

ye feoffees and ye exequtors a thing these many years in 

doeinge, and now done."- The first purchase of books had been 
made in August, 1655, and the expenditure of Chetham's original gift 
of dGlOOO was not fully accomplished until towards the end of 1663, 
when the library possessed about 1450 volumes — chiefl}^ w^irks of 
Theology and of History — some of which had been expressly im- 
ported from the Continent. + These first purchases included not a few 
volumes of great intrinsic value, and now of extreme rarity, the prices 
paid for which contrast curiously (after due allowance is made for 
the difference in the value of money) with those which (copies of the 
same books have sold for in our own day Thus, Holland's Hertvo- 
logia, — which has fetched from 5 guineas up to nearly 27 guineas, 
according to condition — was bought for 14s. ; Purchas' Pilgrhnes — 
v/hich has ranged from £15 uj) to £40 — cost £3 15s. ; Dugdale's 
History of St. PauVs — sold in our day from £3 to £21 — cost but 12s.; 
and his Warwiclisldre — which has brought, at auctions, from £9 to 
£18 — 27s. 6d. A multitude of similar instances might be cited. No 
donation to the library is recorded until near the close of the 
centur3^ 

* ' Diary,' ut sup. p. G9. 

t It seems worth remark, that the library does not possess a single book which Avas the 
founder's; although in an ' Inventorie of the Goods atT'irton' (preserved amongst the 
Chetham Papers) Vv^e find ' Books .... £20.' 



30 

With respect to the proceeds and application of that ' residue ' of 
his personal estate which the Founder had directed to be bestowed 
in the augmentation of his library, there is considerable difficulty in 
making a clear and accurate statement. Between Mr. Whatton's 
account (in the "Foundations of Manchester") and that given by the 
" Commissioners for inquiring concerning Charities in England and 
"Wales," in their sixteenth Report, there are material discrepancies, and 
the " Chetham Papers" which I have seen do not enable me to recon- 
cile these conflicting accounts. Mr. Whatton's statement runs thus : 
— " With respect to the residue of the testator's i^roperty, they [the 
executors] took credit to themselves for the sum of £2,556, as the 
value of an estate at Hammerton, and other places in the parish 
of Slaidburn, which they conveyed to the trustees for the use of the 
library, and they assigned to the trustees by the deed to which the 
account was annexed, in money and debts, the sum of ^£1, 782 12s. 9d. 
as the remainder thereof."t 

Thus, if this statement be correct, it would seem that the libraiy 
was entitled, in all, to the sum of £4338 12s. 9d. as the proceeds of 
the testator's residue, over and above the sum of £1100 expressly 
bequeathed to it. In another part of the narrative Mr. "^Vliatton 
says : — " The residue of the testator's personal property, amounting 
to the sum of £1,782 12s. 8d. appears to have been laid out in the 
purchase of . . . [estates situate in the town and parish of Roch- 
dale in Lancashire], in the years 1686 and 1691, though of this fact 
there are no particulars. The amount of the purchase-money j)aid 
for these estates was £1800. It is not stated from what source that 
mone}^ was derived, but the rents have always been carried to the 
account of the Jiosjntal."^:^ 

The Charity Commissioners, on the other hand, thus report : — 
"The legacies for books and establishment of the libraiy were appUed 
as directed hj the testator; but in the disposition of the residue of the 
j)ersonal estate, amounting to £2,556, there appears to have been 
some misappropriation. A part of this sum was laid out in the 
Hammerton estate, in Yorkshire, and the remainder in the purchase 
of property in the parish of Rochdale, in Lancashire ; and the rents 
of the former have been carried to the use of the library, but of the 
latter to the account of the hospital."|| 

t "NVliatton, in 'Foundations of Manchester,' iii. 239. 

* Whatton, iit supra, iii, 224. 

II ' Further Report of the Commissioners of enquiry concerning Chaiities,' 24th June, 
1826, as abridged in ' An account of Public Charities in England and Wales-' 1828. p. 671. 
CoMP. REPor.T OF Select Committee on Public Lieeakies.— £'i;?fZence ofT. Jones, Esq, B.Ai 
—"1165. — Q. 'Did the Charity Commissioners make any report on Chetham's Library ? 
A. Yes, they did; and a mistake has arisen from their report that the money has been 
misdirected.' [" To the ans-vrer I gave in my evidence, I desire to add, that their report 
originated the apprehension ■\rhich is entertained in this neighbourhood, that the money 
left for the augmentation of the library was employed for a different purpose, viz., for the 
benefit of the hospital ; tliat the documents which were laid before the commissioners shew 
that of the £1,782, the residue of the testators property, due to the library,— but of the 
disposal of which the commissioners announce that they could find no statement, — about 
£1,100 were never received, but continued to the end bad debts; and that they also indicate 
the source from whence the money was derived Avhich enabled the trustees to purchase two 
estates, the consideration for v,'hich amounted to £1,800, and the rents of which, wUhoidany 
injury being done to the library, have always been carried to the account of the hospital.''] 
It is surely much to be regretted that a mis-statement made by 9, Royal CpinmissiOQ of 
Inquiry should remain for more than Ucenty years uncorrected. 



31 

Both accounts, it will be seen, agree in the assertion — whether 
that assertion be correct or incorrect — that funds properly belonging 
to the Library have been misappropriated to the Hospital, but they 
differ materially as to the actual amount of the residue ; and I am 
bound to admit that it is not only possible but probable that both 
might be in error as to any direct misappropriation at all. But if this 
be so, gross blame attaches to those who suffered the Royal Com- 
mission to be misled by evidence which was inaccurate, or who failed 
to supply them with evidence both accurate and ample. The 
Charity Report, it may be added, was first published in 1826, and 
Mr. Whatton's work nearly two years later. 

In the year 1693, the library had increased by successive pur- 
chases (the whole cost of which, from the commencement, had then 
amounted to £2,469), to 3,543 volumes. About that date, the Rev. 
John Prestwich appears as a donor of " books to the value of £50 
and upwards." Soon afterwards, Dr. William Stratford gave " books 
to the number of 300 and upwards ; " but the whole number of 
volumes stated to have been presented, up to the year 1842, is only 
about 450, or little more than two volumes a year on the average. 
It was fortunate that Chetham's noble benefaction was not entirely 
dependent for its growth on the efficacy of his example. 

Until the year 1743, there is an uninterrupted register of pur- 
chases. In that year their total amount had reached £5,127 19s. 9d. ; 
so that, exclusive of the original outlay, there had been devoted to 
the acquisition of books upwards of £50 a year on the average, and 
the money appears to have been very judiciously expended. About 
1740, several fortunate sales appear to have occurred in the neigh- 
bourhood. At one of these, two productions of the press of Wynkyn 
<le Worde were purchased for five shillings and sixpence, namely : 
Fisher's " Exposycion of the VII iDcnytentyal Psalmes" (1508), and 
the "Nova Legenda Sanctorum Angli" (1516). The former is so 
rare that no sale of it is recorded by Lowndes. The latter has 
fetched from £5 to £7. The excessively rare v/ork of Father 
Parsons, " The Three Conversions of England," cost fifteen shil- 
lings, and his " Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown 
of England," one shilling. Tyndal's " Practyse of Prelates" was 
bought for one shilling and sixpence, and his " Brief Declaration of 
the Sacrament," for one shilling and sevenpence. The curious 
English version of Erasmus' " Enchiridion Militis Christiani" 
(1544) cost but sixpence ; and the acme of cheapness seems to 
be attained in the purchase of Sir Thomas Smyth's Treatise "De 
Repubiica Angiorum," Raleigh's " Prerogatives of Parliaments," 
and Burton's " Protestation protested," at the price of fourpence 
for the three. 

Of course, by way of set-off, we may find instances of books 
purchased (in the regular market) at prices far beyond their present 
value; as, for example, " L'Antiquitd Expliqu^," of Montfaucon (best 
edition and with the supplement), which cost ^630 — a sum that 
would now more than purchase two such copies. The prepondC' 
ranee, however, is very much on the side of *'good bargains," 



8^5 

The comparative i^rogress and the diversified financial histoly of 
the two branches of this noble Charity, will be best and most suc- 
cinctly exhibited if we trace it under the four distinct heads of — 
1. Endowment; 2. Revenue; 3. Outgoings; 4. Net Income. 

First, as to endowment : The Hospital was endowed with a sum 
of ££7,000 (or with rent-charges deemed equivalent thereto), in 
addition to ^500 for the purchase of a building. The Library was 
endowed wdtli the sum of ^£1,000 (to be at once expended in books), 
and with the further proceeds of the testator's residue — amounting, 
in the gross, if we are to take the testimony of the historian 
of the Foundation's of Manchester (published subsequently to the 
investigations of Lord Brougham's Charity Commission), to no 
less a sum than £4,838 12s. 9d., in addition to £100 for the purchase 
or adaptation of a building. In round numbers, therefore, the 
endowment of the Library was to the endowment of the Hospital 
as 43 is to 70, or somevvdiat more than three-fifths. 

Secondly, as to the gross income or revenue : The testator's will 
contains no directions as to the investment of the proceeds of his 
residue, but simply directs that the}- " shall be bestow^ed by my execu- 
tors in bcolis . . . for the fuilher augmentation of the said library," 
leaving the manner of such augmentation to their discretion, and 
that of his three feoffees above-named. Accordingly, the deed by 
which the Hammerton Estate was conveyed hj the executors to the 
feoffees, in March, 1061, recites: — "That upon serious debate and 
consideration, it was conceived that it would be more beneficial for 
the advancement of the said library that the sum £2,600 [which 'thej'- 
had then remaining in their hands'] shoukl be laid out in the purchase 
of some lands or tenements, to the intent that the yearly rents and 
profits of the same should be employed, as well for the buying of 
books, yearly or otherwise, as also for the repairing, fitting, and or- 
dering of the said library, and the buildings thereto belonging, than 
to lay out the residue of the said xjersonal estate at once." 

The estate thus purchased, cost, as we have already seen, £2,55G, 
and, in 1811, it piroduced £715 per annum. It now produces but 
£500 per annum. 

The Rochdale Estate, which both Mr. Whatton, and the Com- 
missioners for Inquiry into Charities, as we have seen, assert, 
(whether correctly or incorrecth') to have been purchased with part 
of the testator's residue — whatever the amount of that residue may 
have been, — appears to produce £471 16s. lid. per annum, notwith- 
standing the granting of building leases for 999 years, and the abso- 
lute sale and alienation of x)ortions of this estate for sums amount- 
ing, in the aggregate, to £6875, which sum has been invested in 
stock, and produces an annual dividend of £272. The total present 
income of the Rochdale Estate is, therefore, £743 16s. lid., the 
whole of which is carried, not to the account of the Library, but to 
the account of the Hospital. 

The only income at present accruing to the library, other than 
that of the Hammerton Estate, is the dividend of a sum of £1,050, 
Tliree-and-a-Quarter per cents (in lieu of £1,000 late Navy Five per 



33 

cents), purchased in 1820, out of a balance which had accmed from 
the surplus of income beyond expenditure. The present income of 
the Library is, therefore, £534 2s. tkl. What, on the other hand, is 
the present income of the Hospital? It is thus stated by Mr. 
Whatton:— -i^ 

Eents of the Sutton Estate ^1696 12 

„ „ Eochdale Estate 47116 11 

Ordsall Rent Charge 103 

Dividends on Stock 337 15 

Total ^2608 3 11 

It follows, therefore, that the income of the Library, as compared 
with the income of the Hospital, is as 53 to 260, or about one-fifth. 

Apart altogether from the question of the alleged diversion of a part 
of the residue from the Library to the Hospital, it will be observed, 
that, by some mischance or other, all the good fortune of a j^rofitahle 
investment has lighted upon the latter, and all the bad fortune of an 
wiprofitahle one, upon the former. The ^1800 invested at Rochdale, 
for the Hospital, brings £740 a year; the £2500 invested at Ham- 
merton, for the Library, brings £500 a year. 

Again, the Sutton estate, m Derbyshire, belonging to the Hospital, 
(which at the time of its purchase is said to have produced about 
£350 a-year) brought in, between 1811 and 1820, £1,100 a-year. It 
produced, at the date of the Commissioners' Report, and, at present, 
I believe produces £1,690 a-year. The Hammerton estate, belonging 
to the Librar}^ produced, between 1811 and 1820, £715 a-year. It 
now produces £500 a-year. The one, during forty years, has increased 
fifty per cent ; the other, during the same period, has decreased nearly 
thirty-three per cent. 

Thirdly, as to the outgoings, or what may be termed " dead weight" 
charges upon the income : Of these, the principal items are stated to 
be for the re^iairs of the College building, and of the farmsteads on 
the estate in Yorkshire ; and for the expenses of dinners for the 
feoffees and otRcers on the daj^s of meeting. As to the repairs of 
the building itself, Mr. Whatton says : — " Of these expenses two- 
thirds w^ere charged previously to .1818 to the account of the 
Hospital, and one-third to the account of the library. They are 
now divided equally, the whole sum being carried, in the first 
instance, to the account of the Hospital, and credit taken for the 
receipt of one moiety thereof as from the Library." After stating 
that from 1818 to 1825 inclusive (eight years) these ordinary repairs 
had cost £1,380 17s. 9d., he adds, " In 1822 there was erected at the 
Hospital a new washhome and laundry, the cost of which was 
£411 4s. 6d., one moiety of ivhich ivas charged to the library account in 
the same manner as the ordinary rejmirs.''^ After describing various 
other disbursements, he proceeds to " the expenses of the dinners 
■provided for the governors and otficers of the Hospital on the days 

* Ut supra, 234. 
t Whatton, iii., 235. 



34 

of meeting. For these tlie governors have laid in a stock of old wine, 
for the cost of which and of the dinners, one moiety is rejxddfrom the 
Library account, in the same manner as above-mentioned, uith respect to 
the expenses of repairs." 

"The following sums," he adds, "appear in the treasurer's 
accounts, since 1800, for wine thus purchased." Then follow the 
items, amounting, between the jeRvs 1800 and 1825 inclusive, to 
^4:54 Is."^ The cost of the dinners is given only for the three years, 
1823, 1824, 1825, and the average of these years is £29 2s. 8d. ; if 
this be a fair average for the entire twent}^ fi^e years, the amount 
would be £728 6s. 8d., making a total cost vmder this head of 
£1,182 10s. 2d., of which £591 5s. 4d. was charged to the Library. 

Of the cost of repairs to the farm buildings at Hammerton, an 
account was given in CAidence before the Commons' Committee on 
Public Libraries in 1849, by which it appears that these repau's, 
together with the charge for some heating apparatus, &c., for the 
library itself, amounted in the five preceding years to £1,245, or 
£249 a-year on the average.f This sum a^jpears to include the 
moiety for repairs to the college building (if any) during that period. 
Subsequently a very large expenditure has been incurred in the 
thorough repair and restoration of the building, which is not nearly 
completed. 

There are, in addition to the foregoing, two other fixed charges 
against the Library towards the salaries of the steward and solicitor, 
amounting to £iQ 10s. a-year. 

Fourthly, as to the net incoinie available for the support and 
increase of the Library : It has been seen that the various charges 
on the income assigned to the librarj^ which have had to be met 
before a shilling has been available for its proper service, have, for a 
long series of years, amounted, at the least, to £290 a-year; there 
remains, therefore, barely £240 to defray the librarian's salary', &c., 
to pay for bookbinding and other incidental expenses, to keep up 
the " works in progress" and periodical pubHcations already in the 
library, and to purchase new books. The first item in this list 
absorbs £145 — a very inadequate sum, by the waj', for the services 
of such a man as the present librarian — which leaves £99 for all the 
rest. 

That poverty of the library, in respect of recent literature, which 
I shall have in the next chapter to describe, is therefore, no subject 
of surprise; and it is quite as natural that we should find a very 
large number of the old books in decayed and tattered bindings, 
and manj' of them covered with a venerable coating of dust. It 
would seem, indeed, as if former trustees had had a notion that not 
to be disturbed was as good for their old books as for their old Avine. 

Although the librarian has the entire charge and care of a collec- 
tion of upwards of 18,000 volumes, he has, until very recently, had 
no assistance of any kind, save that of an occasional schoolboy or 
two from the hospital. It ajDpears, in short, that as respects all 

* Wliatton, iii., 236. 
t ' Public Libraries Report— Minutes of Evideuce of 1&49,' (T. Jones, Esq.; Q, 1106, p. 75. 



35 

the appliances necessary for conservation or increase, the library- 
is worse provided than it was a century ago. 

Fortunately for the reputation of the Feoffees, the condition of the 
Hospital is very different. Its revenues are flourishing. The 
character of the school has been greatly improved. The number of 
the boys maintained and educated, has been successively increased 
from forty to sixty, from sixty to eighty, and, within the last eight 
years, from eighty to one hundred. Had the Library but kept pace 
with the School, there would be small cause for dissatisfaction with 
the administration of Chetham's trust. 



CHAPTER IV 



AN ENDOWED LIBHARY 01' THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY; ITS CURIOUS 

MSS. AND FINE OLD BOOKS. A RATE- SUPPORTED LIBRARY OF THE 

NINETEENTH CENTURY; ITS MODERN BOOKS AND ITS COLLEOTIONS 
ON COMMERCE. WOULD IT BE FOR THE ADVANTAGE OF MANCHES- 
TER TO UNITE THEM ? 

Early in the eigliteentli century, the Chetham Libraiy was visited 
by several eminent men, some of whom have recorded their visits in 
their published works. Amongst the latter are De Foe ; Dr. Stukely, 
the antiquarian; and that "curiosity of literature " who is knoAvn as 
George Psalmanazar. De Foe writes : — " By the bounty of the said 
founder is also erected a very fair and spacious librar}^, ah-eady fur- 
nished with a competent stock of choice and valuable books, to the 
number of near 4,000, and daily increasing with the income of ££116 
per annum."':= 

Dr. Stukely's notice is very curt, and very characteristic of himself. 
" The College," he says, " founded hy Chetham, a tradesman, has a 
good library.":}: 

Psalmanazar is better worth quoting than either of the preceding: — 
" At Manchester I had, moreover, the opportunity of frequently 
visiting a noble library belonging to Chetham College, and well fur- 
nished wdth all manner of books that could be piu'chased for money : 
for it is endowed witli £100 per annum to supph^ it with new ones as 
they come out ; and yet, when I was there, they had about £400 in 
bank, aud scarce knew how to lay it out, insomuch that they were 
thinking of purchasing some of the most curious MSS. This, I 
could not but observe to them, was ill judged, considering the situa- 
tion of it among tradesmen, who have neither taste nor knowledge 
for such valuable pieces . . . and rather advised them to lay out 
that income in purchasing such valuable modern books as are yearly 
published, both in England and out of it; and which I thought would 
iDctter answer the intention of the noble donor. They seemed to 
acquiesce in that I said, but whether they followed my advice or not, 
I never enquired since. ''§ 

* 'Journey through Great Britain.' 2J edition, 1738), iii., 177. 

% ' Itinerarium Curiosum,' Centuria ii., 29. 

§ 'Meraoira.... of George Psalmanazar.' (176i.) pp. 243 ~3il. His Visit took place 
in 1761. 



37 

Very fortunately the Feoffees and librarians did not follow the 
advice of the Historian of Formosa. And hence it is that the library 
possesses a collection of MSS., few in number, indeed, but of great 
value. The records cf their acquisition are sparse and meagre — 
v^hether from the fear of critical censure, or from any other cause — 
so that the history of some of the most curious of them cannot now 
be traced. Some description of the most noteworthy will be here- 
after attempted. But it must also be remarked that the purchases of 
printed books appear to be very irregularly entered, subsequently to 
the year 1743. Such entries as appear relate chiefly to the acquisition 
of costly and valuable works in Topography and Natural History, 
especially between the years 1778 and 1787. At this period, for 
example, it is recorded iJ58 was given for Boydell's Shakspeare ; 
£20 7s. for Martin's Universal Conchologist ; £26 15s. for a set 
of Hogarth's Works ; and £27 10s. for " 100 drawings of birds by 
Mr. Abbott, of Savannah, in Georgia," afterwards bound into 
volumes. 

In 1791 a catalogue* of the library was prepared and published 
by the Reverend John Eadclifte, M. A., the then librarian (afterwards, 
I believe, Kector of Limehouse, near London). This catalogue is 
arranged under the following five principal classes : 



I. Theologta. 

II. JURISPRUDENTIA. 

III. HiSTOETA. 



IV. SCIENTT/E ET ArTES. 

V. LiTEBiE HUMANIORES. 



Under this arrangement, the first class includes Canon Law, but 
not Ecclesiastical History. Politics and Commerce form a subdivi- 
sion of History ; and Philosophy is the first subdivision of Science 
and Arts. 

The total number of separate entries in these two volumes is, of 
printed works, 6,679, and of MSS. 44. But, as collections of several 
treatises bound together, and collections of tracts on any one subject 
— whatever the number of pieces, or of .volumes, — respectively appear 
only as single entries, that number does not rei^resent the total of 
distinct printed works Avhich the library then contained. These 
appear to have amounted to about 7,160, and the number oi volumes 
to 11,497. The catalogue was, in some respects, carefully compiled, 
and contains many useful notes and references. 

To this catalogue a supplement was published in 1826, by the 
Rev. William Parr Greswell (the author of the " Annals of Parisian 
Typography," &c.),who was especially employed by the Feoffees in its 
compilation. Mr. Greswell included in his task the preparation of 
indexes to the preceding volumes, as well as to his own, but (for 
what reason it is hard to guess) printed the index of each volume 
separately. The total number of entries in the supplement, is, of 
printed works, 1,255, and of MSB., 51. The total number of volumes 

* " Bibliothecffi Chethamensis : sive Bibliothecas publicsa Mancuniensis at) Humfredo 
Clietham fundatse Catalogus.' 2 vols. March, 1791-2. 8vo. 





Volumes. 


. 3,261 




4,075 




681 




3,403 




2,856 



38 

contained in the original catalogue and the supplement together, is 
14,276, the classification of which may be given as follows : 

I. Theology . . . , 

II. History 

III. Jurisprudence 

IV. Sciences and Art . 

V. Literature .... 

Total, 14,276 

In these days, — the venerable folio and the handsome quarto 
ha^dng alike become almost as truly extinct as the mastodon, or the 
megatherium, — to know the mere proportions of the several sizes in 
a library is enough to afford a sort of rough sketch of the age and 
character of the books of which it is composed. It may, therefore, 
be worth while to state that of these 14,276 volumes, no less than 
9,843 are folios and quartos, and onl}^ 4,433 octavos " et infra." 

If not from time immemorial, at all events since the days of Mr. 
Radcliffe, (the Ubrarian who compiled the first two volumes of the 
above-mentioned catalogue, and who, distracted by an attempt to re- 
arrange the library, returned to the old collocation of the books), the 
" classes," or recesses, as well as the compartments of book-shelves 
on the ojDposite wall, have been distinguished by the letters of the 
alphabet, one letter being assigned to each side of a " class." Thus, 
the five classes along the shorter corridor are thus denoted : — The 
first class (that nearest the Hbrary), A and B ; the second, C and D, 
and so on, the fifth marked I and K, being what is called the " libra- 
rian's class." The large corner class adjoining this, at the angle of 
the corridors, has long been called (why I know not) the " Arch 
class ;" and between it and the extremity of the long corridor, are 
nine other classes, marked, as before, L M, N O, &c., till the alpha- 
bet is expended, and then the eighth and ninth classes of that line 
(the 14th and 15th of the entire number) are marked Aa and Bb ; Cc 
and Dd. the corresponding compartments of the opposite wall are 
distinguished in the same waj' by letters painted over them, from Ee 
to Mm ; and the wall of the shorter cOrridor from Nn to Qq, which 
is the compartment opiDosite the class A, near the reading room door. 
The old arrangement of the books, then, was as follows : — 

Classes : — 

A & B. Bibha Sacra. 

C. Concilia. 
D &E. Patres et Scriptores Ecclesiastici. 

F. Annotationes in Novum Testamentum. 
G &H. Annotationes in Vetus Testamentum. 
I & K. Dictionaria et Lexica. 
Arch, Historia Naturalis, &c. 

L. De Disciplina Ecclesiastica, &:c. 
M. Theologia Practica, 



S9 

N. Tlieologia Polemica. 

O. Historia Ecclesiastica. 

P. Historia et Antiquitates. 

Q. Historia Britannica. 

R. Historia Gallica, Germanica, et Italica. 

S. Historia, Geograpliia et Inscriptiones; 

T. Historia Gr£eca et Romana, &c. 

U. Philosophia : Mathematica. 

W. Philosophia : Physica et Metaphysical 

X. Philosophia : Lexica et Grammatica. 

Y. Philosophia : Mythologia et Critica. 

Z. Classici Grseci et Latini. 
Aa. Historia Naturalis. 
Bb. Medicina. 
Cc. Jus Civile. 
Dd, Jus Angiicanum. 

The Wall Shelves : 

Ee & Ff. Medici etBotanici. 

Gg. Lexica et Bibilothecae. 
Hh. Numismata et Itinera. 

li. Historia Profana. 
Kk. Historia et Antiquitates Britannicie. 
LI. Historia et Antiquitates variarum Gentium. 
Mm. Tlieologia Polemica et Practica. 
Nn, Philologia Sacra. 
Oo & Pp. Scriptores Ecclesiastici. 
Qq. Libri Liturgici. 

In lieu of this now unsatisfactory classification, the present librarian 
has arranged the books on a more simple and every way better plan; 
grouping them, according to the relations of the subjects on which 
they treat. The works bearing on theology and religion, which in 
bulk form nearly a third of the whole, are now all collected together 
into the classes and the opposite shelves of the shorter corridor, 
betAveen the librarian's class and the reading-room; and, in the 
classification of this great department of literature, Mr. Jones has 
followed the principles of arrangement long since adopted in Bishop 
Marsh's Library, at Dublin. The following, then, is the present 
order in which the books are arranged : — 

Classes : 

A & B. Bibles, Biblical Criticism, and Jewish Antiquities. 

C & D. Interpreters (including the Fathers) ; works on the 
authenticity and credibility of the Bible, and 
Doctrinal Divinity. 

E & F. Doctrinal, Controversial, and Practical Divinity, (includino- 
the Fathers). 

G & H. Controversial Divinity and Ecclesiastical History (inclu- 
ding the Councils). 



40 

The Wall Shelves: 

Gg to Qq. [Onaline of shelves]. Ecclesiastical History (including 
the Fathers). 
Qq. [On eight shelves]. Liturgical and ritual books. 
Nn to Qq. [One line of shelves]. Theology in all its branches. 
Ditto. [Ditto], The Schoolmen. 

Ditto. [Ditto]. Dogmatic and casuistic writers 

(including the Reformers). 
Ditto. [Ditto]. Bibliography & literary history. 

Ditto, [Ditto]. Catalogues of libraries. 

Classes: 

I&KandA:ch. (The librarian's class). Works of Philolog}^ 

Literary History, JSlemoirs of Societies, 

Bibliographical Curiosities, and Illustrated 

works. 

L & M. Metaphj^sical and political works ; the Topograi)hy and 

History of the counties of Lancaster and Chester. 
N & O. Political works ; Physical Science. 
P & Q. Natural philosophy; Medicine. 

R & S. Transactions and memoirs of learned societies, and 
foreign academies, relating to Mathematics, Physics, 
Manufactures, and the Arts. 
T & U. Topograj)hy, History, and Antiquities. 
W & X. History and Antiquities. 
Y & Z. Classical Literature and Criticism. 
Aa & Bb. Polite Literature and Polygraphy. 
Cc & Dd. Law. 

The Wall Shelves : 

Ee to Mm. Topography, Histor}-, Antiquities, and Public Records, 
(including the Byzantine historians and other collec- 
tions.) 
Ditto [On 8vo. shelves]. Literary History and Reviews. 

By a comparison of the former Avith the present arrangement, it will 
be perceived that the latter has many advantages, and that a book 
will be much more easily found than under the old mode of classifi- 
cation. 

The weak point of this fine old library lies in its almost total want 
of recent literature. Its old books are excellent, but they need to be 
better supplemented by new ones. The collection — once the best 
public library in England, those of the metropolis, and of the two 
universit}^ toAvns alone excepted, — has (only for a time, I tnist,) 
dwindled into comparative insignificance, because it has kept no 
sort of pace with the growth of literature. From 1825 to 1845, only 
1,250 volumes of any hind were added to it, or but CO volumes 
j^early, on the average, both by purchase and donations together. 



41 

By the exertions of the present learned and zealous librarian, Mr. 
Thomas Jones (appointed in 1851), a marked improvement has 
begun, but his task has been sadly up-hill ! By dint of unwearied 
application to the principal publishing societies of the United King- 
dom, and to many individual authors — more especially to such as 
are of the clergy of the Church of England — he has succeeded 
in obtaining, during nine years, 950 volumes by donation. Whilst, 
on the other hand, by earnestly pressing on the attention of the 
Feoffees the importance of completing some of the many valuable but 
imperfect works already in the library, as well as of adding a few of 
the most indispensable recent works, he has obtained by purchase, 
during the same period, about 990 volumes, at a cost of £412. This, 
however, shows a yearly outlay on books (exclusive of that on the 
binding and repairing of old works) of but ^45 a year ; whilst, almost 
at the very foundation of the library, at least £50 a year (equal to a 
much larger sum of our present currency), if we may trust the state 
ments of De Foe and Psalmanazar, was available for that purpose. 

But whether these statements be in detail accurate or inac- 
curate ; — whether we are to take them as extracts from the note- 
books of honest travellers, or to class them with the imaginary 
biogi'aphies of the one author, and the fabulous history of the 
other ; — it has, at all events, been made perfectly clear that the growth 
and progress of the Library of our benefactor have kept no sort of 
pace with the growth and progress of his Hospital. 

The plain fact is, that the library has, in past times, been starved 
in order that its more fortunate foster-brother might the better thrive. 
Minds of all shapes and sizes can see the importance and value of a 
School, especially if the children in it be tricked out in a conspicuous 
livery, and plentifully be-ticketed and be-badged. But the worth of 
a Library is not so salient. The dead worthies, who in close serried 
ranks occup}'^ its shelves, — often in wrappings which smack but too 
strongly of the grave, — are to some ears dumb, and to some, eyes 
unlovely. Here, in a special sense, it is always true that the ear 
hears and the eyes see but what they bring. The contrast, in point 
of prosperity, between " Hospital" and "Library," whilst under the 
same management, would be quite a marvel but for this. 

The best chance of improvement in the condition and public useful- 
ness of the Library lies in its severance altogether from the Hospital. 
And this, I believe, could be so effected as at once to carry out all 
the intentions of the founder far more efficiently than they have 
been carried out hitherto; to exonerate the trustees from a portion 
of their task to which their resources have ceased to be adequate, 
and to confer a gi^eat and lasting benefit on the city of Manchester. 

By the amended Public Libraries Act of 1855, all corporate towns 
in England, having a population of 5,000, are empowered to estabhsh 
and maintain public libraries, by levying a rate, not exceeding one 
penny in the pound, on the property in such towns already asses sa- 
ble to the borough rate, and such libraries once established are for 
ever inalienable. Similar powers are also given to certain other 
classes of towns, and to parishes, under regulations which are 
described in the note appended to this chapter. 

D 



4S 

It is well known that the first library established under the Public 
Libraries Act of 1850, was the Free Library of Manchester, the foun- 
dation of which was laid by a public subscription cf almost unpre- 
cedented libct-ality (originated by Sir John Potter, then Ma3'-or of 
the Borough), and the working of which has been successful to 
a degree heretofore without example in any town within the United 
Kingdom. With a collection of i^rinted books, which now exceeds 
28,000 volumes (brought together by donation and by purchase 
within four years), there has been an aggregate issue of books in this 
librar3'-, to readers of every class of society, amounting, in less than 
three years, to 400,000 volumes. Notwithstanding this great issue, 
but twelve volumes have been lost to the library from any cause 
w^hatever, yet the reference deiDartment is, of course, unrestrictedly 
open to all comers, and its lending department is freel}' accessible 
to all who can produce a voucher or " guarantee" from two burgesses. 

The Reference Collection includes an extraordinary assemblage of 
Books and Tracts in all languages, on political and commercial sub- 
jects, extending already to upwards of 15,000 separate publications, 
dating from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the nine- 
teenth century, and including the best portions of the celebrated 
collections of Nicholas Magens, of Thomas Harrison (a late Commis- 
sioner of Inland Revenue), of the late Lords Bexley and Langdale, of 
Mr. Druaimond Hay, of Mr. William Mellish, of JNIr. Francis Place 
(of the Political Economy Club), and of several other well known 
collectors. 

The average daily number of readers, since the opening, in the 
reference department of this library, has exceeded 200. At the 
Chetham Library, the average daily number of readers, five years ago, 
was twenty-five ; it has now dwindled to less than ten. In brief, it may 
be said, that more use has been made of the books in the Free Librarjs 
within three years, than has been made of those in the Chetham 
Library within eighty years ; yet the first-named collection has lost 
twelve volumes from its lending department and none from its refer- 
ence department, and the other has lost one hundred and fifty,^ as 
stated in the valuable evidence given by the present librarian to the 
Libraries Committee of 1849. 

If these facts could be placed before a resuscitated Humphrey 
Chetham — shrewd, business-Hke, energetic, and beneficent, as we 
have seen that he was — who can doubt the view he would take of 
them? If, moreover, we could tell him that all those "Godly 
English books, such as Calvin's, Preston's, and Perldns" works, and 
Comments or Annotations upon the Bible, "which he directed to be 
carefully chained upon desks, or fixed in other convenient places in 
the churches of Manchester and Bolton, and in the chapels of 
Turton and Walmsley, for the EDiric.vTroN of the common people," 
have almost entirely disappeared, not by wear or bad usage, but by the 
neglect and the cupidity of churchwardens— long since in their 
gi-aves — can any one believe that he would hesitate a moment to 
transfer his library to the keeping of the whole town, through its 
responsible authorities, and, by such transfer, to multiply tenfold 

* This number applies to the whole period of the library's existence. None of th« loes, 
I believe, has been sustained very recently. 



45 

THE SECURITIES FOR ITS CAREFUL PRESERVATION AND BEFITTING AUGI- 
MENTATJON, AND TO INCREASE A HUNDREDFOLD ITS USEFULNESS TO ALL 
CLASSES OF HIS TOWNSMEN? 

Nor is this all. The same step which would relieve the books of 
their antique dust, and change their torn and rotting covers into 
sound and respectable bindings, which would complete many a 
valuable but now imperfect series of volumes, and fill up many a gap 
in every " class," by adding to it the best recent works in its several 
departments of knowledge, would also enable the Feoffees to carry out 
efficiently that enlargement and improvement of the school, or 
" Hospital," which they and their predecessors have so honourably 
begun. It would not only afford them the means of at least trebling 
the original number of the bo^^s to be maintained and educated 
(already, as we have seen, more than doubled by successive aug- 
mentations), but, which is of much greater importance, it would 
enable them to improve the character of the education afforded, and 
thus to achieve fVir more in that good Avork of preparing boys of 
humble, but respectable parentage, to become honest, industrious, 
and prosperous citizens, Avhich the founder had so much at heart. 

Obviously an Act of Parliament would be needed to effect any such 
separation of the Chetham Library from the Chetham Hospital, as 
is here suggested. But that the Corporation of Manchester, were 
such a proposal submitted to it, would be willing to join the Feoffees 
in applying for such an Act, and would undertake to maintain the 
library for the free and perpetual use of the public either in 
connection with the Library already belonging to the town, or 
separately, (if that were deemed preferable,) can, I think, be a matter 
of no sort of doubt to those who are conversant with the manner in 
which that Corporation has hitherto discharged its public trusts. 
The advantage to all classes of the citizens which would result from 
the proposed transfer, would fully justify Parliament in empowering 
the Feoffees to devote all their funds to the support of their school, 
should that step, on deliberate consideration, appear to be expedient. 
The Chetham books might be preserved intact, as a collection, and 
yet for all useful purposes be incorporated with the existing Free 
Librar}'-, and might thus remain a public and perpetual memorial of the 
Founder. The fine old building — the preservation of which I, for one, 
would not, on any consideration, consent to imperil — would become 
wholly available "for the uses of the school, which is at present much 
in want, but entirely without prospect, of increased accommodation. 
Manchester would possess both a better " Chetham Hospital," and 
abetter " Chetham Library," than it has at present; and thus the 
wishes and intentions of its liberal benefactor would be more 
efficiently realised than they ever can be under the arrangements 
which now obtain. 

It may, however, be objected that the Chetham Library itself is 
scarcely worth the trouble and cost proposed to be incurred, since 
it is so generally said to consist, for the most part, of " old theology." 
The answer to this objection, — waiving altogether the very doubtful 
appreciation it seems to involve of the real value of the " old 
theology" referred to, — is that the popular notion on this head is but 
a popular mistake. 



44 

Of the whole number of printed vohimes — more than 18,000 — 
which the library now contains, upwards of 5,000 are historical ; 
nearly 4,000 relate to the Sciences and Arts, and almost as many 
to the class Literature, including under that head collective and 
encyclopaedical works. The number of volumes in the class 
Theology, is about 4,000, and includes a noble series of editions 
of the I5ible, and of commentaries, and other biblical apparatus. 
The historical section of the library includes a very fine series of the 
chroniclers and older historians of continental Europe, especially 
'when these have been brought together into national collections," as 
by Muratori for Italy, — "Rerum Italicarum Scriptores;" " Annali 
d'ltalia;" " Antiquitates Italica3 Medii ^vi ;" &c. ; by Bouquet, and 
his successors, for France, — "Recueil des Historiens des Gaules;" 
"Historiens des Croisades;" &c. ; by Langebek, for Denmark and 
Iceland, — "Rerum Danicarum Scriptores;", and " Scripta Historica 
Islandorum ;" by Struve, Freher, Wegelin, Eccard, Offclius, Schilter, 
Pez, and others, for Germany, and the neighbouring countries, — 
" Eerura Germanicarum Scriptores ;" " Corpus Historic; Germanics ;" 
"Eerum Bohemicarum Scriptores aliquot insignes ; " "Rerum Hun- 
garicarum Scriptores;" "Thesaurus rerum Suevicarum;" "Corpus 
Historicum Medii iEvi;" "Res Germanicge;" "Rerum Boicarura 
Scriptores;" "Thesaurus Antiquitatum Teutonicarum ; " "Rerum 
Austriacarum Scriptores;" &c. ; and by many more for other countries. 
It also possesses a fine series of illustrated books in various depart- 
ments of literature; as, for example, in the Fine Arts, the 
" Museum Florentinum" (in ten volumes, folio) ; the " Galerie 
Royalo de Dresde;" the " Antichita di Ercolano" (m nine volumes, 
folio); the " Liber Veritatis" of Claude (three volumes, folio); the 
" Oalleria Giustiniana" (two volumes, folio) ; the " Etruscan Anti- 
quities" of Hamilton, and his "Ancient Vases" (together, seven 
Tolumes, folio) : — in Natural Htstory, the " Historiae sive Synopsis 
Methodica Conchyliorum . . . libri iv.," of Lister ; the " Histoire 
Gen^rale des Insectes" of Merian — still curious, though, of course, 
suj)erseded — the " Plantae Asiaticas rariores" of Wallich (three 
volumes, folio) ; the " Sertum Orchideum" ofLindley; the "Testa- 
cea utriusque Siciliae" (three volumes, folio, from the fine press of 
Bodoni, at Parma); the " HistoirQ Naturelle des Perroquets," and 
" Histoiro Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis, des Toucans," &:c., of 
Le Vaillant (nine volumes, folio, — fine copies of which have sold in 
France for 1,500 francs) ; the " Monandrian Plants" ofRoscoe; the 
" Poissons Fossiles " of Agassiz (five volumes, folio) ; and the 
" Birds of Europe," " Birds of Australia," &g., of Gould : — in British 
Arc HyEo LOGY, the " Sepulchral Monuments" of Gough; the "Monu- 
mental Effigies" of Stothard; and the "Monumental Remains" of 
Blore : — and, in Voyages and Travels, the "Voyage Pittoresque 
de la Gr^ce," the "Voyage Pittoresque de la Syrie," the "Voyage 
Pittoresque de I'lstrie]" the "Voyage Pittoresque de la Naples," 
the "Voyage Pittoresque de Sicile," the "Voyage Pittoresque des 
Isles de Sicile" (in all, thirteen volumes, folio). But many of these 
fine books are, unfortunatel3% incomplete. 

Many other printed books, uniting rarity with intrinsic worth, 
which arc contained in the Chetham Library, have been mentioned 



45 

already — with reference to the time and cost of their acquisition. 
But many of equal or greater curiosity remain to be indicated, as far 
as may consist with the limits to which these pages must be 
restricted. 

The following relate to America. These I arrange chronologically ; 
the others alphabetically :— 
159(5. Monardus. Joyfull newes out of the new-found worlde. 

Englished by John Frampton, B. L. Lend. E. Allde. 1590. 4o. 
1622. A Relation or Journal of the beginning and proceedings of the 

English Plantation settled at Plimouth, in New-England. [Mourt.] 

Lond. 1622. 4o. 
1630. New-England's Plantation, or a short and true description of 

the commodities and discommodities of that countrey, &c. Lond. 

1630. 40. 
1648. Gage. New Survey of the West Indias. Lond. 1648. 4o 
1689. A brief relation of the State of New England. Lond. 

1689. 4o. 
1703. [Gueudeville.] Lahonton's New Voyages to North America. 

Lond. 1703. 
1721. Trott. Ecclesiastical laws of the British Plantations in 

America. Lond. 1721. Fol. 
[Without date. Broadside relating to the building of an inoculating 
hospital at Boston.] 

Amongst the books which — on some ground or other — are more 
especially noticeable, I may also particularise these : — 
Aldrovandus [Works. Bologna edition] 12 vols. Fol. 
Ascham. The Scholemaster. Lond. John Daye. 1570. 4o. 
^schylus. Tragaedia VI. 8o. Venet. Aldus. 1518. 
Anacreon. 4o. Lut. II. Stejih. 1554. 
Aulus Gellius. Venet. Jenson. 1472. Fol. 
Bacon. Myrrour of Alchimy, &c. Lond. Creede. 1597. 4o. 
Borde. The first boke of the introduction of knowledge. Lond. 

Wm. Copland. 1543. 4o. 
Churchyard. The Worthiness of Wales. Lond. 1587. 4o. 
Cressy. Church History of Britain. 1668. Fol. 
Gower. De Confessione Amantis. Lond. T. Berthelette. 1554. Fol. 
Greene. The Royall Exchange. Lond. J. Charlewood. 1590. 4o. 
Garibay. Compendio historial de las Cronicas. . . . de Espana. 

Antv. C. Plant. 1571. Fol. 4 vols. 
Grafton. Chronicle, Lond. Denham. 1509. Fol. 
Hearne. [A fine set of his works, extending to 59 vols.] 
Hall. Union of the Houses of York and Lancaster. Lond. Grafton. 

1550. Fol. 
Heywoode. The iron age. Lond. N. Ohes. 1634. 4o. 
A Mayden-heade well lost. Lond. N. Okes. 1632. 4o. 

[The volume which contains these plays of Thos. Heyvvood in- 
cludes eight other rareplaya, printed between 1610 and 1637.] 
Hyll. A profitable instruction of the perfite ordering of bees. 

Lond. 1574. 4o. 
KoUer. Proi)hetiae, &c., Sine loco. 4o. 
Liturgy. (K. Edw. VI.) Lond. 1540. Fol. 
Marmol Caravajal. Historia . . . de Granada. Malaga, 1600. Fol 



46 

Plutarch. Vitse. Venet. Jenson. 1478. Fol. 
Primer. Lond. Grafton. 1546. Fol. 
Schedel. Liber Chronicorum, &c. Norimb. 1493. Fol. 
Scot. A perfite platforme of a hoppe-garden. 4o. 
Tyndall, Frith, and Barnes. Works. Lond. J. Daye. 1573. Fol. 
Theuerdank. Werke, &c. Norimb. 1517. Fol. 
Whytford. Martyrloge after Salysbury use. Lond. Wynhyn de 
Worde. 1526. 4o. 

Of collections of Teacts, the most remarkable is one on the Ro- 
manist Controversy of the time of James II., extending to 416 pieces, 
and containing a considerable number not included in Peck's well- 
known catalogue. Attached to the collection is a copy of this cata- 
logue, with copious M.S. additions by Thyer (the editor of Butler's 
Remains), and by the present librarian. 

There is also a small but excessively curious collection on the 
" Essentialist " Controversy of 1717-22 — to the anonjanous tracts in 
which Dr. Deacon (the non-juring "Bishop" of Manchester of that 
day, who gave them to the library) has attached the writers' names ; 
and also a volume which contains some very rare tracts of Chris- 
topher Angell (" a Grecian, who tasted of many stripes and torments, 
inflicted by the Turks for the faith which he had in Christ Jesus"), 
W. Roe, A. Renter, M.A. de Dominis (Abp. of Spalatro), and others, 
on an earlier phase of the Popish conflict tlian that just referred to. 

The Collection of Manuscripts. 

This collection is a most valuable, though little known, portion of 
the Chetham Library. It comprises only 137 volumes, exclusive of 
the " Chetham Papers," (which are kept in the "Archives," and are 
yet unbound), but there is scarcely a volume that has not its intrinsic 
and distinctive worth. 31 of these MS. volumes are Oriental, and 
106 European. The former are chiefly Arabic and Persian, and 
include a fine MS. of the famous heroic poem on the ancient History 
of Persia, called " Shah Nameh," by the great Persian poet, Ferdausi; 
and an epitome (also in Persian) of the Hindu Epic entitled "Mahab- 
harata." There is, too, a splendidly illuminated Persian MS., 
containing many portraits and many curious j)ictures illustrative 
of the poetry as well as of the manners and customs of Persia. 
But these Oriental MSS. I am incompetent to describe. 

The European MSS. may be classed thus : — 

I. Library Collection: 

No. of Vols. 

1. Historical MSS., 35 

2. Genealogical and Heraldic MSS. 12 

3. MSS. relating to taxation in Lancashire and Cheshire . . 4 

4. Theological and Ethical MSS 24 

5. Scientific MSS. (including several on medical subjects) . 11 

6. Common- Place Books, and other Collections on various subjects 9 

7. Poetiqal MSS 9 

8. MSS. relating to the Library itself 2 

Total .... 106 



47' 

II. Chetham Papers : 

No. of Documents. 

1. Inventories of Chetham's personal estate; Schedules of 

Debts owing to liim; accounts relating to trade, bonds, 
receipts, &c., from 161G to 1050 56 

2. Letters to Chetham, chiefly relating to Mortgages and mat- 

ters of trade. 1629 to 1650 28 

3. Letters of News, and copies of State Papers, &c., enclosed in 

them. 1628 to 1048 10 

4. Original Writ for Ship Money ; Correspondence and ac- 

counts relating to the collection of Ship Money and to the 
ofiice of Sheriff, 1034 to 1639 45 

5. Correspondence relative to the prosecution of Dr. K. Mur- 

ray, Warden of Manchester, and to the new charter for 
the Collegiate Church ; with copies of Charters, Petitions, 
&c. 1034 to 1635 7 

6. Letters and Papers relative to the Collection of Money for 

the re-building of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. 1634 to 
1635 ^ 10 

7. Correspondence relative to Chetham's armorial bearings. 

L635 7 

8. Letters and accounts relating to the collection of subsidies. 

1641-1642 32 

9. Further letters and accounts relating to Chetham's appoint- 

ment, in 1643, as Treasurer of Lancashire; Correspon- 
dence with Fairfax and other Parliamentar}^ Commanders 
and Committees on the support of the army, &c. 1643« 
1048 . . ' . .26 

10. Accounts for "Charges laid out for the Wars." 1642-1640. 24 

11. Letters in relation to the purchase of "The College." 1649- 

1060 2 

Total ., ... 260 

The Historical Manuscripts in the library include a valuable four- 
teenth century copy (No. 6,712) of the "Flores Historiarum," compiled 
by Matthew of Westminster, with a continuation to the year 1326. 
This manuscript was formerly the property of the monks of West- 
minster Abbey, as appears by its inscription, " Liber Ecclesiae S. 
Petri Westmonasterii," and was presented by Nicholas Higginbotham, 
of Stockport, as early as 1657.* There are also manuscripts of 
Higden's " Policronicon," in English (8,037) — apparently of the 
fifteenth century; of the "Chronycie of Scotland" (6,708), by Robert 
Lindsay; (Sir Walter Scott's ' ' Honest Pitscottie") ;* of the "Records of 

* This MS. is much injured, apparently hy damp. But, besides its beautiful illumina- 
tions, it has historical ■worth for additions to the text and various readings. It does net ap- 
pear, however, that it has yet been collated. The late Mr. Eodd once said, that if it were 
in the market he would gladly give £100 for it. 

* This Lindsay M S. (which Avas pi-esented to the Library by Mr. Wm. Stirling, of 
Glasgow) is stated, in the " Bibliotheca Chethamensis," to be the original. Lord Lindsay, 
however (who once purposed to re-edit the Chronicle for the Bannatyne Club), assured the 
present Librarian that this assertion is erroneous. The original he believes to be lost, and 
the hest MS, he states to be that belonging to Cap. Wemyss, of "Wemyss Castle, 



48 

Dunkeld," 1560-1049 (better kno>\^i by the title of "Bishop Guthiy's 
Memoirs") ; — a copy (No. 0,693), stated to differ from the printed 
one, of " A view of the state and condition of Ireland," from 1 6-40 to 
1652 (No. 6,709), which appears to have been used (without acknow- 
ledgment) by Borlase in the compilation of his "History of the Irish 
Rebellion;" and an unpublished continuation (0,002), by Digby Cotes, 
of his translation of the " Biblioth&que des auteurs eccl^siastiqiies " 
of EUies Dupin, to which the translator has prefixed a very elaborate 
account (also unpublished) of Dupin's life and works ; a "Relatione 
del viaggio fatto dal Signor Girolamo Lando, Ambasciatore della 
Ser'ma Republica di Venetia in Inghilterra" (6,700) ; and an original 
MS., by Henry Knj'^vett (6,703), entitled " Project for the defence of 
England against foreign invasions," addressed to Queen Elizabeth 
in 1596. 

The two last-named MSS. are especially curious and valuable. 
The narrative of Lando enables us to till up a gap in those " Relations" 
of Venetian ambassadors to England, which were drawn up by way 
of report to the Venetian Government, in accordance with the usual 
and politic practice of that State. This relation is brief, and begins 
with the date of Oct., 1019. In the best account of the Venetian 
embassies to England — that prefixed to Mrs. Sneyd's translation of 
the eaiiiest narrative of this kind known to exist (printed for the 
Camden Society') — Lando is entered as ambassador from 1020 to 
1022, mth the remark, "No relation known."* Of Henry Knyvett, 
the writer of the "Project for the defence of England," very little is 
recorded. Queen Elizabeth, however, mentions him with commen- 
dation in her letter to Lord Grey, of Wilton, of the 14th April, 1500* 
as one *f those "trusty and faithful servants," who had earned 
her "comfortable thanks for their serWce" at the siege of Leith, 
calling him " Knevet, of whose hurt we be very sorry." The special 
interest of this MS, lies in the writer's clear and vigorous apprecia- 
tion of the advantages which would result from a complete and ac- 
curate Census of the population advantages which some of the North 
American States, by the wisdom of then- rulers, enjoyed early in the 
eighteenth, but which England had to wait for until the beginning 
of the nineteenth ceutmy. Knyvett's chief object was (of course) a 
military one, but he seems to have been by no means insensible to 
some of the other uses to which a "general muster," as he calls it, 
might be turned. He thus describes the experiment he had tried 
in his own locality — Charlton, in Wiltshire : — 

"By virtue of my XDrecexots to the Constable of the Hundreds of 
the DiAdsion where I dwell, in Wiltshire (the least of six), containing 
four little Hundreds, the names of all the people, both 3'oung and 
old, together with the number of houses . . . within the circuit 
thereof inhabiting and being, were -rtithin three or four days, ^^'ithout 
any other muster or trouble to the people, brought unto me, whereof 
I have made a book herewith to be shoAved unto your Majesty, if it 
please you to behold it; containing 3,098 young striplings, under the 
age of 18 years, 3,070 able men for service from 18 to 50, and 1,310 

* Anonymous "Eelatiou of the island of England," p. 20. 
*Hayne's "State Papers/' p. 2S9. 



4g 

old men above 50. . , . Notwithstanding," he adds, " such former 
musters as to good purpose have ah'eady been taken (which out of 
good experience I know are w^eakly performed and imperfectly left), 
I hold it very necessary that yet once again, a general muster be 
more exactly made throughout your Majestie's dominions ... of 
which musters and inrollments I would have perfect books made for 
every the said several divisions, according to the form and manner 
of one which I have made for the division wherein I dwell, and serve 
your Majesty." 

This MS. appears to be the copy actually presented to the Queen. 
It is bound in red velvet, the capital letters are illuminated, and the 
penmanship is of singular beauty. 

The oldest of the " Miscellanies", or, as they would now be called, 
•• Common Place Books" (No. 8,009), supposed to be of the fifteenth 
century, and chiefly devoted to early English poetry, contains also a 
curious historical MS. in English (but perhaps a translation), 
minutely relating that famous interview between Charles the Bold, 
Duke of Burgundy, and the Emperor Frederick III., which took 
place at Treves, in October, 1473, and the abrupt breaking up of 
which, whilst it precipitated the measures which brought the rash 
duke to his fall, did not prevent the aggrandisement of the house of 
Hapsburgh, by the rich inheritance of Mary of Burgundy. The 
narrator of the interview was evidently an ecclesiastic, and an 
ej'-e- witness, and addresses his chronicle, " To my lady of Comynes, 
tho best and dearest of my spiritual daughters," &c.* 

The Historical and Genealogical MSS. which relate to Lancashire 
and Cheshire, are both choice and numerous. They include 
H oiling worth's " Mancuniensis ; or, an History of the towne of 
Manchester," \vritten in the beginning of the Civil Wars (6,700) ; 
Kuerden's Collections for an intended '• History of Lancashire" (2 
vols., 6,702), — fall of information, but entirely undigested, and 
written in an execrable hand, — but for which they would probably 
have been still more extensively used than they were by Mr. Baines, 
in his "History of Lancashire. 3. The " Anticxuities of Cheshire" 
(8,043), better known as the "Adlington MS." and believed to hare 
been compiled by Thomas Leyghe, of Adlington Hall, in the time of 
James I. 4. A very full and curious " Minute Book of the meetings 
of the Manchester Presbytery (8,044), from the year 1046 to 1660. 
5. A "Visitation of Lancashire," made in the year 1567 (6,719). 6. 
A collection of " Lancashire Pedigrees (8.017), mado by that accom- 
pliihed and indefatigable antiquary and draughtsman, the late 
Thomas Barritt, of Manchester, and enriched with copious additions 
and notes by the late Earl of Derby (to whom the volume had 
been lent by Bairitt), as well as with numerous portraits, 
emblasonments, and "tricks" of arms, rubbings from monu- 
mental brasses, impressions of ancient seals, drawings and 

• I have a vague recollection that there is a citation in the excellent work of De Barante, 
Bistoire des Dues de Bourc/ogue, which might clear up thia point, as to the authorship. But 
it ia many years since I read that book, and I have just now no means of refering to it, 



50 

prints of old buildings, and many historical and biographical 
memoranda. 7. Six volumes, chiefly containing the armorial bearings 
of Lancashire and Cheshire families, and drawings of ancient 
castles, halls, and other buildings, and remains of antiquity, also by 
Barritt, and copiously illustrated by his notes and extracts. 8. A. 
transcript of a very ancient " Customary and Rental of the Manor 
of Ashton-under-Lyne" (8,027), formerly belonging to Sir Ralph 
Ashton, of Middleton, Avith notes by Barritt; and three volumes 
(8,030, 8,033, 8,030) of transcripts from Lancashire documents, partly 
MS. and partly printed in rare books — preserved in the Record 
Office in London, and in the British Museum. 9. A transcript of the 
"Life of Adam Martindale" (8,044), the original of which is amongst 
the Birch MSS. in the British Museum. 10. Three " Taxation Rolls," 
and two " Books of Rates" for Lancashire, all of tlio seventeenth 
century; and, 11, the original " Minutts Books of Manchester 
Sunday Schools" 1784 to 1839. 

Amongst the Theological MSS. the following aj)pear to merit 
special mention : — 

1. A New Testament (0,723) of the later "SVycliff'e version, with 
the usual prologues; written about 1430, and presented to the 
library by the Rev. John Clayton, M.A., in 1732; 2. A Bible, of the 
Latin Vulgate, most beautifully written, and illuminated, esu'ly in the 
fifteenth century (2 vols. 6,689) ; 3. A Hebrew Pentateuch, of good 
penmanship, but of recent date, on three rolls; 4. A Roman Missal 
(8,067j with an almanack, containing four large, and sixteen small 
paintings of exceeding beauty; 5. A Roman Psalter with the Grego- 
rian chants, — an ancient illuminated MS. from the Monastery at 
Godstow ; 6 8. Augustini Opera qucedam (0,682), a fine but imperfect 
MS. of the fourteenth century ; — and, 7, an extensive series of theolo- 
gical common-place books, and of controversional treatises — partly 
original — hy two former librarians — the Rev. Nath. Banne, M.A., 
and Robert Thyer, the well-known editor of Butler and of Milton. 

To this class, by subject, but to that of Poetical MSS. by form, 
belongs a fourteenth century copy of that curious specimen of early 
English rhyme, "The Prick of Conscience," by Richard RoUe, better 
known as the Hermit of Hampole — a precursor of Wycliffe both as 
a Church reformer, and as a translator of the Scriptures. T^Tiether 
Warton be right or wrong in his depreciation of Hampole as a poet, 
it is certain that this book (like his other treatises in English) has 
great value for the philologist. Should the poem, on this account, 
ever be printed, the Chetham MSS., although imperfect, will deserve 
collation. 

The MS. Miscellany, also written in the fourteenth centmy (num- 
bered 8,009) — already mentioned for an historical tract which it 
contains — comprises several early English poems and romances of 
excessive rarity. Amongst these are an unique MS. of "Torrente of 
Portyngale" (printed a few years ago by Mr. Halliwell); "Lives of 
St. Anne, St. Catharine, and St. Dorothea;" an English version 
of the "Distiches of Cato," several poems relating to the Blessed 
Virgin; and an early copy of that most curious tract entitled: — 



61 

"A Boke of Kervyng [carving], and Nortur [nurture]," which begins 
thus : — 

"In nom, patris, God kep me t.filii for cherite, 
Et spiriti sa where I be both by land and be see, 
An owsser [usher] I am as ye may se, 
To a prynce ryall of hi degree." 

This "usher to a royal prince" dilates, at great length, on all the 
arrangements for the service of the table, and on the respective 
merits of all kinds of food. The following stanza may serve as a 
specimen : — 

"Butter is an holsom mete firste and laste, 
Ffor he wyll helpe poyson away to caste. 
Also he norisheth a man to his taste [?J 
And with bred he will kepe his mowith fast." 

The volume also contains copies of the metrical romances, "Bevis 
of Hampton" (142 pages), and " Ipomadon" (288 pages), and one or 
two minor pieces.-!^ 

Passing over many Poetical MSS. — by no means unworthy oi 
notice, but the description of which would occupy too much space — 
I come to one (8,012) of the time of James I., of high interest to the 
lovers of our noble and heart -stirring Elizabethan poetry. 
This also belonged to Dr. Farmer, and, like the former, contains 
several historical tracts as well as poems. The bulk of the poetical 
portion of the volume consists of songs, sonnets, epitaphs, and 
epigrams; and also of an extensive collection of rhymed psalms. 
The hand writings are various, and apparently of very different dates. 
One of the pieces is a caustic answer, evidently in a hand of the 
time, to the celebrated poem, called " The Lie," and has gone far to 
fix its authorship on Raleigh, by showing that it was assigned to him 
in his life-time ; another is entitled, " Sir Philip Sydney lying on his 
Death-bed," and appears never to have been published entire. As it 
may possibly throw some light on a point connected with that famous 
death-bed, which has often excited curiosity and speculation, I quote 
it, at length — first prefixing a few sentences, from the successive 
biographers of Sydney, which bear on the subject : — ■ 

1. FuLKE Greville (the " Servant of Queen Elizabeth, Counsellor 
of King James, and friend of Sir Philip Sydney"), [about 1600]: — 
. . . " Afterwards he (^.alled for musick, esi^ecially that song which 
himself had intitled (La cuisse rompue), partly (as I conceive by 
the name) to shew that the glory of mortal flesh was shaken in him, 
and by that musicJc itself to fashion, and enfranchise his heavenly 
soul into that everlasting harmony of angels whereof these concords 
were a kind of terrestrial echo." ("Life of Sydney," as quoted by 
Collins, " Sydney Papers," i., 107). 

* This volume was purchased for 14 guineas, at the sale of the celebrated library of Dr. 
Richard Farmer, who had recorded upon the fly-leaf his purchase of it at Dr. Monro's sale, 
for £29, "before the present binding." The loss of the worthy Doctor's executors, on this 
item, was amply compensated on most of the others. The whole library, it was believecl, 
did not cost Dr. Farmer more than £500, but it produced £2,2X0 at his sale. 



52 

2. Zoucu [180S], " 'An ode/ which was composed by Sir Philip 
Sydney, 'on the nature of his wound,' discovered a mind perfectly 
serene and calm . . . it is deeply to be regretted that this ode 
is not now extant." (" Memoirs of Sydney." 2d edition, 158 ) 

3. GiiAY [1829]. "Sir Philip Sydney . . . was able to amuse 
his sick bed by composing ' An ode,' unfortunately now lost, ' on the 
nature of his wound,' which he caused to be sung to solemn music, 
as an entertainment that might soothe and divert his mind from his 
torments.'" (' Life of Sydney' [Miscellaneous Writings], 50.) ii.:-^ 

4. Beltz [1840]. "Dr. Zouch has alluded to three compositions by 
the accomplished sufferer during his confinement at Arnheim. Of 
these 'An ode on the nature of his wound' and along 'Epistle to 
Belerius,' a Latin divine, both said to have been of tJie jnirest Latinity, 
are yet undiscovered. P'or the existence of the former, I am not 
aware of an_y original authority." (" Last achievements, illness, and 
death, of Sir Philix) Sydney," in the " Archaeologia," vol. xxvii., 
pp. 27—37.) 

5. Pears [1845]. " The ode which he composed on {La culsse 
romjoue), and the music to which it was sung at his bedside, are things 
entirely at variance with modern notions of decency and seriousness, 
and yet they were quite in harmony with Sir Philip's character, and 
the age in which he lived." (" Life of Sidney," prefixed to his Corres- 
pondence with H. Languet, Ixxvi.) 

THE ODE. 

" It is not I that dye : I do but leave an inne, 
Where harboured was with me, all filthy kind of siune. 
It is not I that dye : 1 do but now begin, 
Into eternal joys, by faith to enter in. 

Why mourne ye then, my [servants,]* friends, and kin? 

Lament ye when I lose ; — Why weepe ye when I win ? 
Weary of sinne, but not of sinninge, 
Striving to gaine, but never winniuge, 
Seeking an end without beginninge. 

Thus doe I lead my life. 
My wayes are pitfalls, smoothly hidden, 
My passions resty coults unriddeu. 
My pastimes pleasures still forbidden. 

My peace is inward strife. 
My meditation, thoughts unholly, 
My resolution yielding folly, 
My conscience Sathan's monopolly, 

Sinne doth my soule inherit. 
My penitence doth ill persever, 
My faithe is fraile, hope constant never, 
Yet this my comfort is for ever, 

God saves not man for merit." 

* "Parents" in th? IMS. but obviously a mistake of the transcriber. This blunder Mr. 
Hannah (the ouly writer, so far as I am aware, who has ever referred to this MS.), has 
declared to be " a plain proof of forgery." He adds " that an imperfect copy is found in 
Winstanley's Poets, 1684, p, 8G," and that he therefore subjoins " a better version of them," 
but prints only the iirst six lines, supposing, I infer, that what follows (on the verso of the 



53 

Whether these verses be genuine or spr.rious ; whether they be or 
be not the " Song" sung at Sidney's bedside at Arnheim; whether or not 
Lord Brooke's meaning has even been rightly understood by the subse- 
quent biographers; there can, I think, be no sort of doubt that they 
are worthy of preservation, were it only for the circumstance that 
they were attributed to Sidney by a contemporary, and that their tone 
and sentiment are entirely in harmony with what we know of the 
solemn scene with which they claim to be connected ?•]- 

The Halliwell Collection of Broadsides. 

I have yet to mention the extensive collection of Ballads, Procla- 
mations, and other "broadsides," which was presented to the 
Chetham Library, by Mr. Halliwell, in 1851. If there be truth in 
Selden's opinion that ''more solid tilings do not show the complexion of 
the times so well as ballads," and the lilce ephemeral productions of the 
passing day, this collection must be deemed a most valuable acquisi- 
tion to the library. It consists of 1,309 poetical broadsides, and 
other fugitive pieces, including a few in MS. ; and 1,791 broadsides 
in prose, many of which are of great curiosity. There is a printed 
catalogue of the whole, forming a goodly quarto. J 

But the worth, both of the collection and the catalogue, is materially 
diminished by the utter absence in either of classification, chronolo- 
gical arrangement, or method of any kind whatever. Verse and 
Prose, Theology and Gallantry, Messages to Parliament and Epilo- 
gues to the last new Play. Elegies on deceased Patriots, and 
" Lines on a Chimnej^-sweep," are intermingled pell-mell, and the 
despairing student is courteously informed in the preface, that " the 
Catalogue having been gradually compiled, and a classification 
found to be almost impracticable, it was finally arranged to print it 
without any regard either to arrangement of subject or chronological 
order." And it should be added, " the arrangement" of the pieces 
and volumes themselves is precisely similar to that of the catalogue. 

Attempting to reduce this chaos into some kind of order, I find 
that the collection may be roughly classified thus : 

I. Poetry. 
Ballads (including 124 on political subjects) and miscella- 
neous verses 1,262 

Complimentary Verses 33 

Prologues and Epilogues 14 

Total 1,309 

page) had no connexion witli it. Poems hy Sir Henry Wotlon . . . and others (1816), p. 
69. His conjecture, however, may be right, although liis reason for it seems insufficient. A 
man's acquaintance with English poetry sliould be wide indeed to warrant him in speaking 
very confidently as to the authorship of such verses as these, found in one of the innumerable 
MS. miscellanies of the sixteenth cantury. 

t Compare, for example, the passage in Giflfard's narrative (which Dr. Zouch has printed 
from Cottonian MS. Vitellhis, c. 17, 382) : — Among other things, he uttered this, — that 
'godly men, in time of extreme afflictions, did comfort themselves with tlie remembrance of 
their former life, in which they had glorified God. It is not so in me. I have no comfort 
that way. All things in my former life have been vain, vain, vain.' (Zouch, ubi supi'a 
276). 

t 'Catalogue of Proclamations, Broadsides, Ballads, aiid Poems,' presented to the Chetham 
Library, Manchester, by J. 0. Halliwell, Esq. London, 1851. Printed for private circula- 
tion only. 



u 

II. Prose. 

Political broadsides 653 

Pieces relating to Trade and Commerce .... 42O 

Proclamations 192 

Speeches and Messages to Parliament .... 55 

Pieces relating to the Jacobite war in Ireland .... 72 

BiogTai)hical l3roadsides 57 

Theological broadsides 24 

Scientific broadsides 12 

Law Cases, Trials, &c 148 

Broadsides relating to Charities 27 

Prospectuses of Books 02 

Speeches, " Characters," and other pieces not relating to 

Politics 69 



Total 1,791 

Unlike the celebrated Pepysian Collection at Cambridge, or the 
Eoxburgh Collection, now in the British Museum, this series con- 
tains but few ballads, or other broadsides in "black letter." Its 
greatest curiosities are to be found amongst the pieces which relate 
to Politics and to Trade, and these would be trebled in value were 
they more accurately described in the catalogue. Such an entry, 
for example, as " 336, The Church Scuffle," without the addition 
even of place or date, gives none of the information for which a 
reader may reasonably look; but if the four words [''between Saclie- 
verell and Whiston"] Avere supplied, the title would become intelligible 
at a glance. Of what possible utilitj'-, again, is such an entry as 
" Ordo Curise," Avithout a word to show to what court it relates, or a 
figure to indicate its date ? On such points as these, no sort of rule 
appears to be followed — not even that of supplying no information 
at all. In one place the Aviiter of the catalogue is at the pains to 
point out that the words " The King" mean " K. Charles II." ; but 
in many others he leaves such titles as " Mr. S. 0., his speech," or, 
"A letter in vindication of L. N." without any attempt to supply 
that ["Speaker Onslow"] or ["Lord Nottingham,"] which would 
render such good service to the, reader, who may be laboriously 
wading through a chaotic mass of matter with which he has no 
concern, in hope to hght on some of those useful biographic mate- 
rials, Avhich collections of this kind are sure to contain. Thus, too, 
whilst the great majority of the pieces are without any date at all, 
the reader is now and then misled by such a note as that of " Time 
of Charles II. ," which is appended to a broadside relating to Sache- 
verell's famous trial, in 1710. Tliese imperfections, however, — much 
as students must regret them, — in no wise impeach tbe gi'atitude 
which is Mr. HalHwell's unquestionable due for so valuable a gift. 

There are also in this library other collections Avorthy of some 
mention. But this chapter has already far exceeded the limits I 
proposed to myself in commencing it. I therefore pass these OA-er 
Avithout further notice. Enough has been said abundantly to justify 



66 

the assertion that the Chetham Library is a noble monument of its 
founder's munificence and public spirit, notwithstanding the hin- 
drances to its proper development, which have arisen from its pinched 
means, and its unfortunate position as an appendage to the Hospital. 

That the separation of the two institutions would conduce to the 
prosperity of both, I am deeply convinced. There is conclusive 
evidence that Chetham intended his library to be for the benefit of 
the whole " town of Manchester." In his da^^ that object was best 
attained by providing a learned library " for scholars," and an 
English library for " the edification of the common people." In our 
day, such a divarication, in a provincial city, has ceased to be 
either useful or practicable. 

If farther illustration be needed of the advantages which Avould 
result from that incorporation of the two libraries which I advocate, 
it will be afforded by the statement, that of works in those classes 
which have been particularised as indicating the wealth of the 
Chetham Librar}^ — invaluable as they are — and of Manuscripts, the 
Free Library is, as yet, very deficient; whilst, with modern collec- 
tions, and more recent authors, the Chetham Library is almost 
equally unprovided. 

The former (as respects its Reference Department), with every 
passing 3''ear, is becoming more and more a library for all classes, 
both of readers and students; because, great as are its deficiencies 
in such books as have been mentioned, as Avell as in books of many 
other classes, it possesses the foundation of a noble collection, as 
well of British History, =i= as of the literature of Commerce. The 
latter is becoming less and less useful, with every passing year, to 
amj class, either of readers or of students ; because, rich as are its 
stores, every month sees it falling more and more into the rear of 
tlie science and the literature of our own age. 

The Free Library is yet in its cradle; but some, at all events, of ita 
limbs are acquiring consistency and vigour. The Chetham Library 
can look back upon a long careerf of usefulness, to which many 

• In the formation of the Manchester Free Library, special attention has been paid to the 
general history of the British Empire; but its iopogravhy is very meagrely supplied. 
Books in this class are, as is -well known, of a most costly iiind. Yet our Free Libraries 
ought eminently to aim at becoming local storehouses, in which every sort of information 
respecting at least the county to which they belong — whether historical, statistical, or 
merely descriptive — should become accessible to all inquirers. In this way that desire of 
our old antiquary, Leland, that every county should have its special library, might be nobly 
realised. The Chetham Library has some fine collections of this kind, both printed and 
manuscript; but these are falling into just the same sort of arrear that I have noticed in 
other departments. In not a few cases, the books that would best elucidate the MSS., and 
vicQ versa, must be sought elsewhere. 

t THE FOLLOWING 13 A LIST OP THE SUCCESSIVE LIBRARIANS :— 

1653. Rev. Richard Johnson, M.A., Fellow of Christ's College, Manchester. Mr. Johnson 
was appointed the first librarian, with power to nominate a deputy during hifl Ufe, 
but not to be drawn into an example for future elections. 

1656. Mr, Brown appointed deputy. 

1658. Mr. Lees deputy to Mr. Johnson on the discharpe of Mr. Brown. 

1666. William Harrison deputy on the resignation of Edmund Lees. 

1675. William Harrison, B.A., on death of Rev. Richard Johnson. 

1680. Humphrey Livesay, on removal of William Harrison, B A. 



56 

have borne grateful testimony; but this usefulness is sinking into 
decrepitude and decay year by year. Combine them, and assuredly 
the energetic vitality of the one will be found to invigorate and 
fructify the accumulated stores of the other. 

Nearly two centuries were permitted to elapse before any monu- 
ment was raised to the memory of Humphrey Chetham, other than 
that which he had provided for himself. But, during last year, the 
pious gratitude of a worthy citizen who had been educated by his 
bounty, found appropriate expression in a statue which now adorns 
the " Old Church." Is it too much to hope that to this memorial of 
the thankfulness of an individual may soon be added that still better 
memorial of the gratitude of the community, which would consist in 
giving yet greater efficiency to his thriving school, by the same 
step which would free his starving Kbrary from the obstructions 
which have impeded its growth and diminished its usefulness? 
United, the vigour of the one has been supported by the exhaustion 
of the other. Separate, both would thrive, and become the channels 
of an amount of educational and intellectual advantage to Man- 
chester, which, otherwise, we shall have long to wait for, 

1684. Thomas Pendleton, on death of Humphrey Livesay. 

1693. Eev. N. Banne. M.A., [Afterwards Eector of St. Ann's, Manchester] on death of 
Thomas Pendleton. 

1712. Eev. James Leicester on resignation of N. Banne. 

1719. Eev. Francis Hooper, B.A., on death of Eev. James Leicester. 

1726. Eev. Eohert Oldfield on resignation of Eev. Francis Hooper. 

1732. Eohert Thyer, B.A. [Editor of "Butler's Eemains," and of other works"!, on re- 
signation of Eev. Eohert Oldfield. 

1763. Eev. Eohert Kenyon on the resignation of Eev. Eohert Thyer. 

1787. Eev. John Eadcliflfe, B.A., on death of Eev. Eohert Kenyon. 

1792. Eev. John Haddon Hindi ey, on resignation of Eev. John Eadcliflfe. 

1804. Eev. Thomas Stone, hy infirmity of Eev. John Haddon Hindley. 

1812. Eev. John Taylor Allen, on resignation of Eev. Thomas Stone. 

1821. Eev. Peter Horderne, on resignation of Eev. John Taylor Allen. 

1834. Eev. George Dugard, M. A., on resignation of Eev. Peter Horderne. 

1837. Eev. Campbell Grey Hulton, M,A., on resignation of Eev. George Dugard 

1845. Thomas Jones, B. A., on resignation of Eev. Camphell Grey Hulton. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. 



ON THE OPERATION OF TFIE PUBLIC LIBBA-PtTES ACT, OF 1850, AND 
ON THE MODE OF WOEKING THE AMENDED ACT OF 1855. 

This Act is now in force in the folloAving cities and towns : — ■ 

1. BoLTON (Votes:— QQ2 for ; yo agst. J 

2. Cambridge • • 

3. Kidderminster 

4. [Liverpool] . . (Under Special Act, not requhing ii])ol]). 

5. Manchester (Votes :— 3,902 for ; 40 agst.j 

6 Norwich ( » ^53 „ 7 , „ 

7. Oxford ( „ 596 „ 72 „ 

8. ^Sadford . . (^6^?jf76?r "Museums' Act," not requiring a poll). 

9. Sheffield . . (Votes :— 838 for ; 232 agst. Second poll). 

10. *Warrington (^6'^/zJt'r "Museums' Act"). 

11. Winchester (Votes :— 301 /or ; 13 «^sf J 

The polls by which the Act was adopted in each town respectively 
(as far as I have been able to ascertain them) are shewn by the figures 
appended. Liverpool has its special " Library and ISIuseum Act," 
passed in 1852. The Libraries of *Salford and ^Warrington are 
attached to Museums established under the " jNIuseums' Act" of 1845, 
which Act was repealed by the Act of 1853, and those institutions are 
now maintained under the powers and provisions of the Act last 
named. 

At Birmingham and at Exeter, polls have been taken under the 
Act, and its adoption negatived. In the former case by 534 votes 
against 863, in the latter by 853 votes against 118. 

By the Town Councils of Aberdeen, Bristol, Newcastle-on-Tjme, 
and Preston, as well as by the Common Council of London, resolutions 
approving of the principle of the Act have been adopted, and com- 
mittees appointed to report as to the steps to be taken to bring it 
into operation. In several other towns similar steps are said to be 
in contemplation. 

[At King's Lynn (Norfolk), and St. Helens (Lancashire), Free 
Libraries have also been established, which are x>artialhj supported 
out of rates, under local powers]. 

The Free Libraries at Bolton, Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford, 
Salford, Warrington, and Winchester, are in active operation, and 
contain, in the aggregate, nearly 90,000 volumes. Those of Cam- 
bridge and Sheffield are on the eve of opening, — the former with 
2,000 volumes, to start with; the latter with 3,100. At Norwich a 
new building is now in course of erection, which is to receive its 
Free Library. Here, as at Bristol, there is an ancient Town Library 
(of the seventeenth century) which ought to be,— and I trust will 
be, — made the foundation of the new one. 

E 



58 



The produce of the Rate by which these various institutions are 
supported is at present (under the altered Umit of one penny in the 
pound) as follows : — 



1. 

2 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 



Bolton . 
Cambridge . 
Kidderminster 
Liverpool . 
Manchester . 
Norwich 
Oxford . 
Salford 
Sheffield . 
Warrington. 
Winchester . 



£ 

570 

4:00 



4,600 
4,000 

300 

.1,300 

1,300 

180 

364 



The practical working of the libraries thus established, and the 
degree of success with Avhich their object has been thus far attained, 
will, perhaps, be sufficiently illustrated by the subjoined tabular 
view of the operations of the four libraries of Liverpool, Manchester, 
Saliord, and Bolton; — cill of them now embracing distinct depart- 
ments for Reference and for Circulation : — 
FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF FOUR LANCASHIRE TOWNS- 









r^ 


Ko. of 


'-B- ^1 




. ^ . . Amount of 


Ko. of 
Total Vols, of Books 


0.2 


Volumes issued. 


•^h! 




o tt; 






amount of 


i in Library. 


ZJ 


feo£, '?69§ 


2M^£l 




Subscrip- 
tions. 


granted 
by Town 
Council. 


money 
raised. 


1 


Hi 
> 


1:1 ifil 


Total 

Vols. iH 

to di 

latest 


By 
' Gift. 


By 
Purchs. 


1850. 


£ s. d. 


£ s. d. 


£ s. d. 












1. Salford 


6470 10 


5090 2 5 


115G0 12 5 ' 5459 


7121 


I?!580 


160218 


13815 


174033 
















during 


open 


during 
















fve during a 


fve 
















years. , portion 


years. 


















of last 




















year 




















only. 




1852. 




















2. Manchester . . 


12323 10 


3852 11 2 


16G7S 1 2 


8155 


19789 


27944 


168887 ' 204661 
during duriug 


373548 
during 
















tico 


two 


two 
















years 


years 


years 
















and a 


and a 


and a 
















half. 


half. 


half. 


1852. 




















3. Liverpool — 


7359 2 10 17030 13 11 24419 16 9 * about 


* about 


25195 






246461 








5000 


20195 








during 








vols. 


vols. 








tico 


1853. 
















vears. 


4. Bolton 


3195 4 2 


855 ; 4050 2 


1651 


11541 


13192 27288 j G1184 


88472 
















during during 


during 
















one 1 one 


one 














y«ar, | year. 


year. 


Total ia the four 


1 






1 








towns of Lanca- \ 


29878 7 26828 7 «; 56705 14 6 


20265 


5864G 78911 




682514 


sliire since 1850 













* The statpments in the Liverpool reports and in the MS. documents I have i-eceived, are not 
quite precise on this point, but these approximate numbara are nearly correct. 



59 

Thus, in these four towns (and within an average period of three 
years), a sum of £20,828 has been levied by rate, or granted by Town 
Councils, under the Act; and a further sum of £29,878 raised by volun- 
tary subscription ; nearly 80,000 volumes of good books have been 
inalienably devoted to public use; every such volume has, on the 
average, been actually used 11 times; and provision — both certain 
and permanent — has been made for the replacement, from time to 
time, of all books that may bo worn out in the public service. 

One of the best results which has attended the establishment in 
Lancashire of these Town Libraries, supported by rate, is theunionof 
ALL CLASSES, not ouly in the eiforts which have been necessary to their 
foundation, but by subsequent jiarticipation in their advantages. 
They are, emphatically, libraries for the City or Town which sup- 
ports them, and not for any one section of its population. Under the 
amended Act this will become increasingly apparent, by the enlarged 
means which are afforded for the acquisition of books, adajDted for 
the requirements of all classes, and such as, in most towns, have 
been hitherto within the reach of readers of any class only by private 
purchase. 

The amended Act, which received the Royal assent on the 30th 
of July, is entitled '■'An Act for fnrtlier promoting tlie estahlishnent of 
Free Fublic Libraries and Miisciims in Miinicijial Towns, and for 
extending it to Towns governed under Local Improvement Acts, and to 
Parishes." 

Its applicability extends, first, to all Municipal Boroughs, the 
population of which at the last census which shall have been taken 
(i.e. the last census which may have preceded any proposition lor its 
adoption in any such borough), shall exceed five thousand persons; 
secondly, to all Districts possessing any Board of Improvement 
Commissioners, or other body of Trustees, b}'' vv'hatever name 
distinguished, acting in the execution of any Act for cleansing, 
paving, lighting, or other like purposes, and having a similar 
population : thirdly, to an}^ Parish, having such a population ; and 
fourthly, to any two or more neighbouring parishes having an aggre- 
gate population exceeding live thousand persons, the vestries of 
which may choose to unite for the purpose of establishing a Public 
Librar}^ 

In order to the adoption of the Act in any such Borough, District, 
Parish, or union of parishes, a public meeting, — in Boroughs of the 
Burgesses, in Districts of the persons assessed to the Improvement 
rate, in Parishes of the persons assessed to to the Poor rate, — after, 
at the least, ten days' public notice, must have been duly convened 
(by the Mayor, Commissioners, or Overseers of the poor, as the case 
may be),* and the proposition for its adoption must have been voted 
for by, at least, tivo-thirds of the persons then present. Immediately 
after such vote, duly recorded, the Act comes into operation. If the 
decision of the meeting be adverse, one year must elapse before the 

* 111 Boroughs, the meeting is to he convened at the request of the Town Council ; in Dis- 
tricts and parishes, on the requisition of ten ratepayers. — 18 & 19 Vic. c. (clause 4.) 



60 

re-mootiug of the question ; but the expenses of such meeting are, in 
any case, to be paid out of the Borough fund, Improvement fund, or 
Po or rates, respectively. 

The Act having been adopted in a Borough or Improvement district, 
the Town Council or Improvement Board may defray the expenses 
of carrying it into execution out of the Borough rate or Improvement 
rate, or the}-- may levy a separate rate, to be called " Library rate," 
provided that, in either case, such expenses or such separate rate 
shall not exceed one penny in the pound on the rateable value of the 
property assessed. (If the rate be a separate one, the modes of levy, 
appeal, and recover}-, are to be subject to the clauses of the " Towns 
Improvement Clauses Act" of 1847.) Accounts must be separate 
and public. 

The Act having been adopted in a Parish, the Vestry must appoint 
not less than three, nor more than nine ratepayers, to be Commis- 
sioners for carrying the Act mto execution, and such Commissioners 
become a body corporate as " The Commissioners for Puhlic Libraries 

and Museums for the Parish of ," One-third of such Commis 

sioners must go out of office yearly by ballot, but are re-eligible. 
The}' must meet monthly, must keep minutes and accounts, which 
latter must be duly audited and reported to the Vestiy. For defrny- 
ment of the expenses, the Vestry must levy a rate (not exceeding one 
penny in the pound), in like manner as a JPoor rate, but with proviso 
that occupiers of lands used solel}- for agriculture shall be rated only 
for one-third part of the net annual value. If adopted by the Vestries 
of two or more contiguous parishes, no more than three Commis- 
sioners shall be appointed for each j^arish. 

The general management and control of Libraries and Museums 
thus established, and all real and personal property therein, are, in 
a Borough, vested in the Council ; in a District, in the Board ; in a 
Parish, in the Commissioners. The Council, Board, or Commis- 
sioners, may delegate their powers to a Committee (the members 
whereof may or may not be members of such Council, &c.), "who 
may from time to time purchase and provide the necessary fuel, 
lighting, and other similar matters, Books, Newspapers, Maps, and 
specimens of Art and Science." Powers are also given to ]-ent or 
purchase lands (subject to the approval of her Majesty's Treasury), 
to erect new buildings, or to purchase, alter, and fit up old buildings 
for the reception of such libraries or other collections ; and to borrow 
mone}^ on mortgage in order thereto, subject to the provisions of the 
" Companies Clauses Consolidation Act" of 1815. It is further 
enacted, that admission to all libraries and museums established 
under the Act, shall be free of all charge ; and there is a special 
clause providing for the adoption of the Act in the Cit}- of London, 
with the sanction of a meeting duly convened, of all persons rated to 
the " Consolidated Rate," out of which rate the expenses of carrying 
it into execution are to be defrayed. 

Finally, it may be observed, that if there were now any doubt 
remaining as to the vital importance of that clause in the new Act by 
which Town Councils, &c., are enabled to appropriate part of the 
rate money to the purchase of books, any such doubt would certainly 



61 

be removed by tlie experience on that head of those Lancashire 
towns in which the former Act has been long in operation. Under 
circumstances which, in some respects, were very favourable, only 
about 20,000 volumes, out of nearly 80,000 have been obtained by 
gift; and in each case the volumes presented (taking them on the 
whole) form by far the least valuable part of the entire collection. 
In Manchester, indeed, there have been two very special exceptions 
to this general experience, but both of them have consisted in the 
liberal purcliase of books of great value (in one instance by Sir John 
Potter ; in the other by Robert Barnes, Esq., his distinguished 
successor in the Mayoralty,) exjoressly for thcnr i)resentation to the 
Librar3^ As a rule, it seems certain that dependence on the acquisi- 
tion of books by donation will be entirely unsafe. 

It may be highly probable that in course of time the good work- 
ing of tiie Libraries' Act will become an additional inducement to 
liberal-minded collectors to bequeath their libraries to communities 
in whose welfore they are interested, but true lovers of books will 
rarely, in their life-time, part with those that are worth keeping. 



CHAPTER V. 



WirXIAM nULME AND HIS EXHIBITIONS AT BRASENOSS. — JOHN OTTENS AND 
HIS COLLEGE IN MANCHESTER. THE FUTURE UNn'ERSITY OF MAN- 
CHESTER. 

We have now to consider wlietlier the time has net arrived when 
determined steps should be taken to reaUze for Lancashire some 
adequate amount of educational benefit from that bequest of 
William Hdl^ie which, by the inventive sMl and the enterprising 
industry of Lancashire men, has grown from thirt}^ pounds a-year, 
into nearly hve thousand pounds a-year, and is (in the oioinion of 
a most competent judge of such questions, Mr. Alexander Iva}-,) in 
a fair vray to become, within half a centmy, at least ten thousand 
jDOunds a-year of net income."' 

In 1691, Mr. Hulmc bequeathed the property which commercial 
enterprise has thus raised an hundredfold in value, for the support 
at Brasenose College, in the University of Oxford, of "four of 
the poor sort of hatchellors of arts," to be nominated and approved 
of by the warden of the Collegiate Church of Manchester and the 
Eectors of the Parish Churches of PrestAvich and of Bury, in the 
said county of Lancaster, for the time being, and their successors for 
ever; "wiy mind and icill being that noe such batchellors shcdl continue to 
have anything of this my exhibition hut only for the space of four years, to 
be accompted from the time of such degree taJcen." His trustees have , 
jDrevailed upon Parliament to divert a largg. portion of it from a 
purpose essentially educational, to the very difi'erent purpose of the 
purchase of advousons, the building of churches, and the erection of 
■parsonage houses. 

The successive steps by which this misappropriation has been 
brought about are worthy of notice. Ui) to 1770, the exhibitions 
continued to be four in number, but were gradually raised in amount 
from agio to £"60. Li that year the Trustees obtained joower to 
increase the number to ten and the annual allowance from £60 to 
£80. They were also enabled to grant building leases of the land in 
Manchester for terms not exceeding ninety-nine years. In 1795, 
these powers were extended, and it was enacted that the number of 
exliibitions might be raised to fifteen, and their amount to £110 
a-year. Yet within twenty years of this extension of the charity^ 

♦ Sec Mr. Kay's valuable evidence before the Manchester Educational Committee, 2Sth 
June, 1852, Q. 2,412, pp. 396, 509 ; and the tvrenty-first report of t\\e Charity Commissioners 
(1829), pp. 623—637. At the date of this report, the trustees had a rental of £3,331, in 
addition to the proceeds of £4,911, lent on mortgage, and of £10,875, money in the funds. 
Since this chapter was first in type, Mr. Kay has published a pamphlet (which tvill well 
repay penisal) entitled: 'Hulme's Charity. A letter to B. NichoUs, Esq., Mayor of Man- 
chester, on the past management of this CUaritj' ; Tritl} suggestions for the future 
spplication of its Jarge surplus iucome,' 



63 

the accumulation of its surplus income amounted to the sum of 
£•23,700.=;= 

Again the trustees applied to Parliament, and this time they 
sought and obtained (in 1814) power to make a small departure 
(which, however, has proved to have been but " the thin end of the 
wedge,") from the testator's directions, by nominating under-graduates 
as exhibitioners a year before taldnrj the degree of B.A.; and by paying 
to a lecturer in divinity a sum not exceeding ^6150 a-year. They were 
also empowered to allow to each exhibitioner an annual sum not 
exceeding £220 a year; to dispense with residence in college during^ 
certain terms, to purchase land and to build rooms for the exhibi- 
tioners at a cost not exceeding £5,000. But no land has been 
purchased and no buildings have been erected. 

In 1827, the annual income had increased to £5,887, and the 
"savings" to £12,203. The trustees, not having availed themselves 
of the powers last named either by purchase or by building, noAV 
asked Parliament to enable them " to apply part of the present 
and future accumulations of the said trust estates, and monies, in 
the purchase of advowsons of livings, and to present thereto such 
individuals as at the time of the avoidance of such livings actually 
should be, or theretofore should have been exhibitioners on the 
foundation of the said testator in Brasenose College." 

The application does not seem to have excited opposition, or even 
to have attracted any degree of public attention ; and thus an Act 
was quietly passed, by Avhich the powers sought for were conceded. 
But it was provided that a surplus fund should always be left of at 
least £20,000, and that not more than £7,000 should be expended on 
any one advowson or benefice. 

Twelve years later the trustees appear to have thought that it was 
time to clench the nail which had been so cleverly driven thus far. 
And now they asked and obtained the following enactments (2 Yict. 
c. 17— A.D. 1839) :— 

" 1. The repeal of so much of the Statute 8 Geo. IV. as directed 
that the accumulated fund should be kept up to £20,000, and the 
substitution of a proviso that the accumulation should not be less 
than £5,000, the consent of three-fourths of the trustees being first 
obtained in writing. Wanting such consent, the limit was fixed at 
10,000. 

•' 2. Power to endow or augment the endowment of any benefice 
purchased by the Trust to an amount not exceeding £7,000. 

" 3. Power to expend such sums, not exceeding £7,000 in each 
case, as they shall think fit in building and. endowing churches or 
chapels; to purchase or build parsonage houses at a cost not exceed- 
ing £700 in any one case; and to possess, as patrons, all the rights 
possessed by the patron of any the like ecclesiastical benefice."t 

Under this act the trustees have already purchased twenty-nine 
benefices, the annual aggregate value of which appears to be about 
£5,400 a-year. Ten of these benefices are under £200 a-year; four 

* Twenty-first Report of the Commissioners for inquiring concefaing Charities, (1829) 
p. 624. 

t See the abstract of this Act given in Mr, Kay's Letter to the Mayor of Manchester, 
pp. 15- IS. 



64 

of tiiem are under £L00 a-year; tlieir average value is but jC180 
a-year * Mr. Kay points out— justl}^ enough — the disparity between 
livings, or as he i^refers to call them " starvings," such as these, and 
the allowance made to the exhibitioners "whilst at college. I am 
not, however, disposed to la}'- much stress on this point. Every step 
that has been thus taken involves an unjustifiable departure from the 
testator's intent, and a gross perversion of the interest of the public 
in the endowment. The testa.tor expressly says, that he desires to as- 
sist the poor sort of graduates whilst they are at College, and no longer. 
Under the present system, "rich men," we are told, " degrade them- 
selves b}'' seeking for their sons, or dependent relations, a college 
education of seven jears' duration, at the expense of a charity in- 
tended for poor scholars ;"f and the trustees further tempt them to 
make the perversion co-extensive with their lives. Thus, what might 
have been a noble educational provision for men who have to fight 
the battle of life at a disadvantage, becomes but an additional cushion 
for men who are already at ease. An endowment, producing in half 
a centmy more than i:-200,000, educates during that time about tuf> 
hundred and eighty persons. Whilst the inquiring by-stander, looking 
back over the whole period of the existence of the benefaction — now 
somewhat more than three half centuries — has to record his convic- 
tion, that " the deadening influence of the entire system is apj)arent 
from the simple fact, that not a dozen of Hulme's exhibitioners, in 
the space of 150 years, have arrived at eminence either in literature 
or science."^ 

The Oxford Universit}' Commissioners have reported, that in their 
opinion the practice of bu3nng livings, pursued by some colleges, 
ought not to be continued. Their opinion is thus expressed : — . . . 
" It is very doubtful whether either literature or the Church derives 
an 3^ benefit from the ecclesiastical patronage of colleges. . . . It is a 
'rule of peace' in them, to offer vacant benefices in succession to the 
Fellows according to seniorit}^ vrithout any regard to their qualifica- 
tion for the office. ... A very immoral person (if such there were) 
Vv'ould be j)assed over ; but the most important livings may be 
claimed, from generation to generation, by elderly men who have 
lingered in the college for many years in hope of the particular 
preferment wdiich they eventual!}^ obtain, till they are fit neither for 
the post which they have coveted nor for any other. , . If benefactors 
should be Avilling to give advowsons to colleges, it might be inexpe- 
dient to forbid the acceptance of the bounty ; but, in our opinion, 
the revenue of the colleges themselves ought not to be applied to 
THE PURCHASE OF rREFERMENT."§ If that practice be exceptionable on 
the part of Colleges, it is obvious that it must be, at least, equally so, 

* Oxford University Calendar, as quoted by Mr. Kay, 2it sup. p. 3S. Thei'e is some 
disparity, however, in tlie gross amount, as it would appear by the table, and as it is stated 
in the text. 

t Kay, Letter, &c., p. 34. J Kay, uhi supra. 

§ Report of the Oxford University Commissioners (1852,), 171. Preeisoly in unison -with 
this, is the opinion recorded by the Commissioners of Inquiry into Dublin University : — 
•When so much.' say they, 'might b3 done for the advancement of education by the endow- 
ment of additional Fellowship.^, Professorship.s, and Exhibitions in the College, we thisk 

THE PTJKCHASE OF ADVOWSOXS AN ISJUOIGIOL'S APPLICATION OF TllZ COLLEGE FCSDS." — 

'Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to inquire in:o the state, discipline, ifcc. 
of the University of Dublin and of Trinity College (IS53), 22. 



65 

on the part of Hulme's trustees. Those trustees have i'epeatedly 
asserted, that it is not expedient further to increase either the num- 
ber or the allowances of exhibitioners, and have embodied this their 
opinion in Acts of Parliament.* Surely, then, it is a reasonable 
inference, that if Parliament be justifiable in liaving already legalized 
so wide a departure from the intentions of the testator, for a limited 
and sectarian object, it will bye-and-bye be much better justilied in 
proceeding a step further, for an object which shall be at once 
unsectarian in its scope, strictly educational in its character (and 
thus in that respect more accordant with the testator's will), and in 
conformity with a wise, deliberate, and matured expression of public 
opinion on the subject. 

The sums hitherto set apart for the purchase of the advowsons, 
and the sums subsequently expended — or set apart for expenditure 
— upon the benefices so purchased, have been stated to amount to 
jg4(>,546 9s. Gd. ; in addition to which, it has been estimated^ that 
there is at present a further accumulated surplus capital of ^21,030, 
which has accrued from the savings of income since 1839. 

In 1851 (after repeated attempts in preceding years), Mr. Bright 
moved and carried a resolution for a ""Return, in a tabular form, 
shewing the several adoowsons or other ecclesiastical benefices purchased by, 
or now belonging to, the Trustees of Mr.Iiulme ; . . . the date when they 
vere respectively jmrchased ; the price paid for each ; the gross anratal 
income of each; the names of the present incumbents ; and when such 
incumbents were respectively nominated or presented, and by whom." The 
return ordered has never been made ; and Mr. Secretary Walpole 
appears to have applauded the refusal. After such approval from a 
Minister of State, it can scarcely excite surprise to find the presi- 
dent of Brasenose (Dr. Harington) replying to a Royal Commission 
of Inquiry, appointed with the full knowledge and virtual approval 
of Parliament, that " the College declines to give information to 
parties with the object of whose inquiries they are wnacquainted, and for 
whose authority to inquire they can find no warrant either in the Statutes 
of their Founders or in their Charter of Incorporation." The Koyal 
Commissioners who were thus contemptuously treated included 
(it will be remembered) the distinguished Savilian Professor of 
Geometry in the University of Oxford, the Master of Pembroke, the 
Dean of Carlisle, and that excellent and trul}'- venerable prelate the 
late Bishop of Norwich. 

So profound is the mystery which at present enshrouds the Hulrae 
Trustees and their management, that — as has been stated in the 
Manchester Guardian — two poor labourers, who a short time ago were 
ruined by the defalcations of a Hulmean Rector, strove in vain to 

OBTAIN EVEN A LIST OF THE NAMES OF THE POTENT BODY THEY INTENDED 
TO MEMORIALISE. | 

* 'Private Acts,' 10 Geo. III. (1770); 35 Geo. III., c. 62 fl795); 54 Geo. III., cap. 205, 
C1814) ; 7 & 8 Geo. IV., c. 9, (1827) ; 2 Vic, c. 17, (1839) Abstracts of these Acts will be 
found in the first Report of the Committee on Manchester and Salford Education, lS5i^, 
pp. 477—481. t Manchester Guardian. 2nd May, 1855. 

X It may be mentioned, as matter of curiosity, that no list even of Chetham's Trustees 
appears in any recent Manchester guide-book; the latest th.at a tolerably extended search 
has revealed, is that published by Mr. Wheeler, in his 'History of Manchester,' in 1830. 
Prior to 1830, such lists were of common occiirrenca, (See Astou'3 'Manchester Guide ;'— 
' Panorama of Manchester,' &c.) 



66 

John Owens, a Manchester merchant, who died in July, 1846, by 
his last will, after bequeathing several legacies to public charities 
and educational establishments already in existence, and making 
adequate provision for some poor relatives (without unduly lifting 
them out of their sphere) directed that the available residue of his 
personal estate, should, under the management of fourteen trustees, 
named in the will, be applied to the purpose of founding " an insti- 
tution for providing or aiding the means of instruction and improving 
young persons of the male sex (and being of an age not less than 
fourteen years) in such branches of learning and science as are now, 
and may be hereafter usually taught in the English Universities, but 
subject, nevertheless, to the two fundamental and immutable rules 
and conditions heieinafter prescribed, namely — First. That the 
students, professors, teachet'S, and other officers and persons con- 
nected Avilh the said institution, shall not be required to make any 
declaration as to, or submit to any test whatsoever of, their religious 
opinions, and that nothing shall be introduced in the matter or mode 
of education, or instruction, in reference to any religious or theolo- 
gical suoject which shall be reasonably offensive to the conscience 
of any student, or of his relations, guardians, or friends, under whose 
immediate care he shall be. Secondly. That if, and as often as the 
number of applicants for admission to such institution as students 
shall be moi-e than adequate to the means of the institution, a 
preference shall in all cases be given to the children of parents 
residing, or who, if dead, or the survivor of whom resided, when living, 
within the limits now comprised in the parliamentary borough of 
Manchester aforesaid, or within ten miles from au}^ part of such 
limits ; and secondly to the children of parents residing, or who or 
the S'Arvivor of whom v»dien living, resided within the limits compri- 
sed in the parliamentary district or division of South Lancashire ; but 
subject as aforesaid, the said institution shall be open to all appli- 
cants for admission, without respect to place of birth, and without 
distinction of rank, or condition in society." . . . 

The institution thus planned has become The Owens College. 
Its germ lay, I believe, in the anonymous article b}- which attention 
had been called in a public journal to the want of such an institution 
in Manchester. The testator was a native of the town, — born in 
moderate circumstances, of very unobtrusive life and manners, 
unmarried, and without near relatives, — and by dint of persevering 
industry had realised a considerable fortune. His "residue'" 
amounted to i'lOO.OOO. No part of it was applicable either to the 
erection or the purchase of a building, but a subscription (quietly 
raised by the personal exertions of the trustees, and amounting to 
nearly £10,000) soon provided one, on a scale more than sufficient 
for the immediate requirements of the college, and capable of large 
extension hereafter. 

Tho course of study, as settled by the trustees, comprises : — 

1. Languages and literature of Greece and Rome. 

2. Mathematics, 

3. Natural Philosophy. 

4. Logic and Mental Philosophy, 



67 

5. General Grammar, English language and literature. 

6. Histor}^ and Moral and Political Pliilosopliy. 

7. Natural History. 

8. Cliemistrj^ 

9. Modern Languages. 
10. Commercial Studies. 

The college was opened on the 12tli March, 1S51, in the presence 
of the Bishop of Manchester, of the President of the Lancashire 
Independent College, of the Rev. J. J. Tayler ; and of many other 
ministers and laymen of various denominations. Its professors 
were empowered to give certificates for candidates for degrees in the 
University of London, by a ro3"al warrant of the 29th May, 1851, and 
It has for its Principal, Mr. A. J. Scott, a gentleman who, at the time 
of his election, was Professor of EngUsli Literature and Dean of the 
Faculty of Arts in University College, London. 

In a pi'eliminary report — printed in 1850 — the Committee of 
Trustees, charged with the preparation of a scheme for the orga- 
nization of the college, thus expressed a hope which will, I trust, 
some day grow into a reality: — "We take this opportunity of inviting 
attention to the important subject of the establishment in Manchester 
of an University conferring its own degrees, without resort to the 
metropolitan University. . , The claims of Manchester to such a 
distinction are, we conceive, not inferior to those of Durham. . , and 
the Owens College, Avith adequate support, ma}^ form the nucleus of 
a University by which the beneficial designs of our testator may be 
carried out, to an extent scarcely contemplated by himself, and 
greatly to the advantage of this and the adjacent counties." 

Both the amount of success w^iicli has hitherto attended the 
working of The Owens College, and the causes which have limited 
that success, alike point to the necessity of dealing thoroughly and 
comprehensively with the question which was thus mooted. The 
large and rapidly increasing funds of the Hulme Charity, if rescued 
from their present perversion, will go far to afford the means of so 
dealing with it, and there can be no doubt that these means would 
be liberally supplemented by a public subscription, commensurate 
with those vast advantages which could not fail to result to the 
whole community from the adequate foundation and the secured 
maintenance of a future university of MA^•CHESTER, 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE IIIXOR CHABITABLE FOUNDATIONS AND BEQL'ESTS OF MAIJCHESTER 
WORTHIES. 

The late Thomas AValker, of Longford, — a most Avortliy man, both 
in public and private life, though, in the daj^s when the good old 
words of " Church and King" were prostituted to the excitement of 
popular frenzy and to the encouragement of public riot and brutal 
outrages, he Avas tried for " Sedition," — at the close ofhas borough- 
reevalty, in 1792, published an account of what were then called "The 
Boroughreeve's Charities." The}^ were seven in number, with an 
aggregate income of £395, and were all intended for the relief of poor 
and necessitous people. The five Avhich remain now produce an 
annual income of i62,103 15s. 6d. The princiijal of these was 
established in his lifetime by George Clarke, through the trusteeship 
of Humphrey Chetham. In Mr. Walker's time it produced ^320 
a-year. In tiie time of Mr. Kay (who imitated his joredecessor's 
example b}'- publishing an account of these charities in 1S4S)* it 
produced ^1,970 a year. Marshall's Charitj- (the next in importance) 
produced at the former period ^£07 10s., and now produces exactly 
the same amount and no more. The difference in present beneficial 
result between Clarke's Charity and Marshall's Charity is just the 
difference between wise investment and unwise — between the good 
and the bad " administration of Charitable Trusts." 

Besides these Charities — now called The Mayor's Charities — 
there are many]others, left b}^ various old "Worthies of Manchester," 
some of which are administered by private trustees, others by the 
Churchwardens and Overseers of Manchester; and others, again, by 
the Dean and Canons. Some well husbanded, and zealously ad- 
ministered ; and others which, b}^ neglect of trustees; (most of whom 
are long since in their graves,) have either fallen into decrepitude, or 
have been totally lost. Taking all these " Minor Charities," in 
the order of their respective dates, we may disregard, — for the pre- 
sent, — their pecuUar Character as to Trusteesliqi. 

(1) MARGARET AND V^ALTER NUGENT's CHARITY. 

The earliest in date is that founded by Margaret and Waltei' 
Nugent, who, in pursuance of the intention of Richard Nugent, 
deceased, conveyed, in 1609, certain messuages in trust for the 
bestowal of the reserved rents thereof in the buying of turves for 
poor housekeepers. 

* "Proceedingsofilanclit'stcr Council," 1850,173—190 



69 

In 1826, the Commissioners for enquiring into Charities reported 
that no pa.vment had been made on account of these chief rents 
since 1812. * 

(2) EDWARD MAYES* CHABITY. 

In 1621, Edward Mayes bequeathed £120 to be employed in the 
purchase of land, or to be otherwise profitably invested, for the use 
of the poor of Manchester, to whom the rents and proiits were to be 
distributed according to the discretion of the Churchwardens and 
others, on Good Friday in every year. Land and DwelUnghouses in 
and near Millgate and'Miller's lane were accordingly purchased ; and 
in 1794 an Act of Parliament was obtained authorising the granting 
of buildip.g leases, the annual rents of which amounted in 1825 to 
£429 18s. 6d., and the then estimated annual value to £'1,875. ** 

( 3 ) GEORGE Marshall's charity. 

In 1624, George Marshall granted all his lands and tenements to 
Wilham Sparke and others, in trust to apply the rents, &c., to the 
relief of poor people within the town of Manchester. These rents 
amounted in 1750 to £12 per annum. In 1781 the propei-ty Ava^s sold 
to the Improvement Commissioners, and the purchase-money, £2,250, 
invested in three per Cent Consols, yielding annually £67 lOs. Od.f 

As has been observed already, this sum it produced sixty years 
ago, and this sum it produces now ; neither more nor less. Many 
similar instances will appear in the sequel. 

(4) ELLEN hartley's CHARITY. 

In 1626, Ellen Hartley, of Manchester, conveyed a dwelling-house 
and apjjurtenances in " Market-Stidd-lane," in trust to apply the 
rents, &c. to the relief of poor and needy people dwelling in Manchester, 
at the discretion of the Constables and Churchwardens. In 1822, 
this property produced an annual rent of ^14 10s. Od. In that year 
it was sold to the Market-street Commissioners for ^1,370, and the 
purchase money, after deduction of £131 10s. 6d., for Trustees' ex- 
penses, was ultimately invested in the 3 per Cents. ;|; 

In 1848, Ann Collier by her Avill (which took effect on her death in 
1852), after bequeathing £100 to the Deaf and Dmnb School, 
directed that the residue of her property should be added to the 
Charity distributed by the Mayor of Manchester called "Ellen 
Hartley's Charity." In October, 1853, the Charitable Trusts Com- 
mittee reported their expectation, that " upwards of £700 would be 
thus added to the funds of such Charity." § 

( 5 ) NICHOLAS hartley's CHARITY. 

In 1628, Nicholas Hartley bequeathed £50 towards the comfort and 
relief of aged and poor people of Manchester; which sum was 

* Charities Report, (xvi.) 151. ** Ibid 152-5. t Charities Report, 143. Kay, ubi. sup., 181 
t Charities Report 157. Kay, in Proceedings, 182. 
§ Ibid, at sup. Proceedings of the Council, 3, p. 300. 



70 

invested in the pnrcliasG of a dwelling-house and appurtenances at 
Moston, producing in 1712 an annual rent of £*3 ; from 1762 to 1813, 
one oi£k 4s. Od.; and since 1813, one of .£l51')s. Od. t- 

( 6 ) GEORGE Clarke's charity. 

In 1636, George Clarke enfeoffed in Humphrey Clietham and 
others, houses and land in Manchester, Crumpsall, and Tetlow, in 
trust that the clear yearly rents should be for ever and wholly dis- 
pensed in the relief of poor aod needj^ persons in ISIanchester, accord- 
ing to the judgment and direction of the Boroughreeve and 
Constables. According to Mr. Walker, the property, at the date of 
the gift, produced the clear annual sum of £100. In his year of 
office (1790-91) as Boroughreeve, it produced ^320 Os. 6d. f 

In 1795, and again in 1806, the Trustees obtained power to grant 
building leases, and otherwise improve the estate; and, at the date of 
the Charity Commissioners' inquiry (182o), the one hundred pounds 
of yearly income of 1636, and the three hundred and twenty pounds 
of 1790, had become one thousand seven hundred and ninety five 
pounds of gross annual income. The annual expenses, on an average 
of the six preceding years had been about £280, leaving an average 
net income of i.'l,515. During those six j-ears, £1,755 had been laid 
out in the purchase of stock, and £0,647 distributed — cliiefl}^ in linen 
and in blankets — amongst the recipients of the charit}^ Twenty 
years later (1846), the ?iet sum so distributed Avas £1,800, and the 
number of persons relieved in one year, 7,686. I 

( 7 ) JOHN Partington's charity. 

In 1677, John Partington bequeathed to his Executors £100, to the 
intent that they should purchase lands or tenements in fee-simple, 
and convey the same in trust for the relief of poor and needy people 
in Manchester, at the discretion of the overseers for the time being. 
Lands in or near Little Lever appear to have been purchased accord- 
ingly ; but the Commissioners, at the date of their Manchester 
inquiry, had " not been able to obtain any further information as to 
this Charity," but " Avere in hopes that they should be able at least to 
discover the situation of the Lands . . . and the present possessors 
thereof" when they should come to enquire into the Charities of 
Bolton, in which parish Little Lever is situate. § 

(8) HENRY DICKANSON's CHARITY. 

In 1682, Henry Dickanson gave to the i)oor of Manchester the sum 
of £100, the profits Avhereof Avere to be annuallj' diAided amongst them 
at Christmas for ever. This sum AA-as expended in the purchase of a 
messuage at SaddleAvorth, and a yearly rent of £5 is paid to the 
ChurchAvardens of Manchester. !| 

* Charities Report, 155. 
t Ctiaritics Report, 139-146. Kay, ubisup. 177-1S2. 
X K3ij,tili supra. {Charities Report, 159. Jl Ibid. 



71 

(9) JOHN BAELOW'S CHAIllTY. 

In 1684, John Barlow gave ^5 a year for ever toward " maintaining 
a schoolmaster at Shrigley, to teach poor children"; £1 a year to buy 
them books ; and ^6 a year to bind apprentice poor boys in Shrigley 
and Manchester alternately. " We have not," say the Commissioners, 
" been able to discover any trace of the payment of this Charity for 
the benefit of the poor in Manchester, although about 1823, great 
pains were taken by the Churchwardens to obtain information." * 

(10) EOBERT button's CIIAIlITy. 

In 1037, Robert Sutton bequeathed to his Executors £200. to be 
laid out in the purchase of land or tenements, in trust, to employ the 
income thereof, towards the clothing of at least 24 poor, aged, and 
necessitous housekeepers in Manchester. Land and tenements 
in Sholver and Gorton were accordingly purchased, and yearly 
rents of twenty pounds thence accruing are annually employed in 
the purchase of stuff gowns for poor and aged women, f 

(11) THOMAS PEECIVALL's CHAEITY. 

In 1693, Thomas Percivall gave to the poor of Manchester £150, 
which appear to have been laid out in the purchase of lands at 
Royton, which lands, in 1825, yielded to the Churchwardens of 
Manchester a yearly rent of £28. Under this land there is coal, 
which, in 1825, was estimated to be worth upwards of £1,000.| 

(12) JOHN ALEXANDER AND JOSHUA BEOVv'n's CHARliy. 

In or about the year 1088, John Alexander, as it appears, gave 
land in Gorton for the use of the poor of the township of Manchester ; 
and, in 1G94, Joshua Brown gave £100, to the same use, which, 
about half a century afterAvards was laid out by the Churchwardens 
in the improvement of the land at Gorton — well known as the 
" Manchester Poor Land ' — and the Cottages thereon, which, in 
1822, were let for a term of fourteen years, at rents amounting to £oO 
per annum. § 

(13) THOMAS MYNSHULL's CHAEITY. 

In 1689, Thomas MynshuU — one of a ftimily which has now an 
ascertained place in the biography of John Milton — conveyed to 
Trustees certain lands and buildings in Manchester, first to his own 
use, and after his decease to be "carefully employed to bind poor, 
sound, and healthful bo3''s apprentices." In 1825, the property Avas 
let at £51 per annum ; and in the six years jn-eceding 1824, thirty- 
three boys were thus indentured. || 



Charities Report. t Ibid. 161. | Ibid. 149. § Ibid. 118. 

II Ibid, 162. 



(U) IIUMPHKEY OLDFIELD'a CHARITY. 

In 1690, Humphrey Oldfiekl bequeathed ^20 to the poor of Man- 
chester, and i'50 to the poor of Salford. These sums were lejit on 
interest at 5 per cent., and the proceeds are distributed yearly in 
gratuities to j)oor persons.-;^ 

(lo) ELLEN SHUTTLEWORTh's CHARITY. 

In 1695, Ellen Shuttleworth bequeathed ^50 to continue for ever in 
the hands of the Boroughreeves of Manchester, and to be by them im- 
proved to the best j-early profit, and the produce thereof (£2 4s. 8d.) 
employed in the purchase of linen cloth, to be distributed amongst 
necessitous persons inhabiting in Deansgate, in Manchester. 

( 16 ) JAMES :moss' charity. 

In 1705, James Moss bequeathed £100, to be laid out in the pur- 
chase of lands and tenements, with the profits vrhereof five bkie 
gowns were to be given to five aged men on Christmas-day morning 
in the South-porch of the ' Old Church.' A rent charge of £5 5s. 
is annually received by the Churchwardens, and is thus appro- 
priated, f 

(17) FRANCIS CARTWRIGHT's CHARITY. 

In 1708, Francis Cartwright bequeathed to Trustees £420, to be 
put out at interest, or laid out in purchasing a yearly rent charge or 
other good estate of inheritance, out of tlie profits of vv-hich his Trustees 
should annually pay one pound to the preacher of a New Year's Ser- 
mon at the Paiish Church of Manchester, and divide the residue 
into three equal parts — two of which should be lent yearh^ without in- 
terest, for the term of seven 3-ears, to poor, honest men of the Church 
of England, giving proper security; and the other third part be 
yearly laid out for binding apprentices, tbe children of indigent 
housekeepers of Manchester, mairtaining themselves without poor- 
relief. In 1825, the investment made in pursuance of this will- 
produced chief rents amounting to £19, in addition to the yearly profits 
of what remained of the sum of £'1,000, which had been placed out at 
interest, but from which various sums had been drawn from time to 
time for the purpose of the Charity. At that date there were twenty 
bonds for £50 each outstanding, the earliest of which dated from 1819 ; 
and there was on record but one instance in which preceding loans 
had not been duly and fully repaid. Between 1819 and 1825, twenty- 
three children had been placed out to good trades with premiums 
varying from eight guineas to £20-1 

(18) CATHERir.E RICHARDS* CHARITY. 

In 1711, Catherine Richards, of Strangeways Hall, directed by her 
will, that the persons who from time to time should be in possession 

* Ibid. 162-3. t Ibi<i. 150, 151. { Ibid. 165. 



It 

of tlie Estates thereby devised, in tail, should out of the rents of her 
houses in Manchester, pay ^100 a year for relief of widows or decayed 
tradesmen of Manchester, and for instructing and apprenticing poor 
boys and girls of the like decayed tradesmen. Part of the premises 
which were charged with the payment of this yearly sum, were sub- 
sequently purchased by the Churchwardens and Overseers of Man- 
chester; and since that purchase, a like sum has been charged 
annually to the account of the poor rates as for the rent of the 
Poor House, but retained by the Churchwardens "in lieu of the 
sum payable by Lord Ducie — owner of the estates formerly be- 
longing to Mrs. Eichards — mutual receipts being given, the one to 
Lord Ducie for i^lOO, due to the Charity: the other by Lord Ducie 
to the Churchwardens for ^GlOO rent."* Out of the income, there 
was paid at the date of the Commissioners' Inquiry, £10 a year to 
ten poor widows appointed by Lord Ducie and the Warden of Man- 
chester alternately ; ^£20 a year was paid to the Treasurer of the 
National School for Boys of Manchester and Salford, and the 
remainder was applied for other educational purposes, or in appren- 
tice fees. 

(19) ANN IIINDE'S charity. 

In 17i23, Ann Hinde bequeathed houses in Fennel Street and land 
in Salford (subsequently purchased for the erection of the Salford 
House of Correction at the price of ^1967 10s.), together with the 
residue of her personal estate, in trust, that the profits should be 
yearly applied to the " instructing of 20 poor children: 10 theieof 
inhabitants of the town of Manchester, and 10 of the township of 
Stretford." In 1825, the yearly income was ^£200, out of which 57 
children were " clothed and educated free of expense."f 

(20) AVILLEAM BAGUIEY's CHARITY. 

In 1725, William Baguley bequeathed the sum of £200 " towards 
the founding and endowing of a charity school within Manchester." 
The report of the Charity Commissioners on this bequest is too 
pregnant an one for much abridgment : — " In the account," say they, 
" of charities entered in the churchwarden's register, preparatory to 
the Parliamentary Returns of 1786, it is stated that with the sum of 
£200, chief rents amounting annually to £8 13s. 2d. had been pur- 
chased and were then vested in Sir J. P. Mosley, Bart., and the Rev. 
R. Kenyon. Under this statement there is an entry in pencil which 
seems to have been intended as a list of the chief rents ... to the 
amount of £8 Is. 4d., but by whom . . . made does not appear. We 
have applied to the several persons now in possession of the different 
premises mentioned in the list, but have not been able to obtain any informa- 
tion . . . nor any evidence of the payment of these rents, except as 
to one of £2, though it is supposed that the whole or . . . part, were 
received by John Thornton, who kept a school in Tipping s Court up to 
the time of his death in 1821.]: 

* Ibid 167. The Will af Caih. MicMrda. 8vo. Manchester, 1790. 
t Charities Eeport, 169— 17 \. 
^ Ihid. 168. 
F 



74 

(21) JANE CORLES' CHARITY. 

Jane Corles, in 1732, gave £55 to be placed out at interest in the 
names of the chaplains of Christ's College, that out of the interest 
there might be given to " ancient poor persons who should frequent 
the said College and attend divine service there," either loaves every 
Sunday or gratuities every Cliristmas Eve at tlie discretion of the 
said chaplains," which bequest has been ever since duly distributed * 

(22) ROGER Sedgwick's charity. 

In 1733, Roger Sedgwick gave £200 to he expended in lands of 
inheritance, and the rents thereof yearly distributed to the necessi- 
tous poor of the township of Manchester. In 1825, the rent charges 
received on this account amounted to £S 3s. 9d., and were j'early 
distributed by Mr. Sedgwick, of Hoole Hall, near Chester, great 
grandson of the testator — "from inadvertency, amongst the poor of 
his own immediate neighbourhood ;" but, add the Commissioners, 
" being now aware that the charit}^ was intended for poor persons of 
Manchester, he has engaged to apply the income, in future, accor- 
ding to the directions of the donor."f In 1851, on the report of 
their Charitable Trusts Committee, the Council of Manchesterresolved; 
" That this Council do hereby authorise and instruct the said Com- 
mittee to take all steps necessary for securing the transfer of the 
trust under the will of the late Koger Sedgwick from the present 
trustee to the Corporation, and of vesting the charity estate left by 
him for the poor of Manchester in the Mayor, Aldermen, and 
Burgesses of the borough ; and that the said Committee be also 
empowered to make the necessary arrangements for petitioning the 
Court of Chancery and for indemnifj-ing on behalf of the Corpora- 
tion, the present trustee from an}^ costs which may be thereby 
incurred.";!; 

(23) CHARITIES OF ANK BUTTERWORTH, DANIEL BAYLEY, AND OTHERS. 

In 1735, Ann Butterworth gave to trustees, by Deed Poll, the sum 
of ^500, to be put forth at interest for the binding apprentice the 
children of poor Protestant dissenting ministers and decayed trades- 
men — " not excluding other Protestants" fi. e. other than dissenters 
from the Established Church), " who should have been of sober and 
religious behaviour, and of good credit and reputation." Another 
sum of £100 was given bj^ Daniel Bayley, and in 1825 the capital 
fund of this charity (besicles a balance at bankers of £32(i bearing 
interest) had, by good husbandry, amounted to ^3,066 13s. 4d., Three- 
per-Cent Consols ; and " it is stated," say the Commissioners, " that 
no application is refused, provided the child on whose behalf the 
appUcation is made is a real object of charity ;" and further, " that it 
is for the benefit of all persons being Protestant, whether of the 
Church of England or dissenters." § 

* Ibid. 171. t Ibid, 162, 173. % Proceedings of the Council, 1551-52, p. 28. 

§ Ibid, 175, 177. 



(24) ELIZABETH SCHOLEs' GHAEITY. 

In 1740, Elizabeth Scholes gave ^621 to make provision for a yearly 
sermon at the Collegiate Church, on St. John Baptist's Day, for ever ; 
and a further sum of .£150, the interest whereof should be divided 
equally, immediately after such sermon, amongst 20 poor, needy, 
and impotent housekeepers receiving no relief from the said town, 
(with another bequest for the poor of Chapel-en-le-Frith). These 
sums were invested in the Five-per-Cents of 1797, and in 1825 com- 
muted for ^206 13s. 4d., Three-per-Cent Consols, yielding eight 
pounds a-year.t. 

(25) ELLEN Nicholson's chaeity. 

In 1742, Ellen Nicholson gave £120 in trust to pay the annual 
interest to ten poor inhabitants of Manchester having no relief from 
the town. It produced, in 1825, ^Q yearly. In October, 1850, 
Messrs. Slater and Heelis, as solicitors to the executors of Thomas 
Tipping, Esq., deceased, the representative of Ellen Nicholson's 
surviving trustee, stated to the Charitable Trusts Committee, that it 
appeared to them "most judicious to vest the above sum in the 
Corporation, in order to the distribution of the annual income by 
the Mayor, as Chief Magistrate," and the Common Seal of the 
Corporation was accordingly affixed, on the recommendation of the 
Committee, to a Declaration of Trust to the effect proposed, f 

(2G) ELIZABETH BENT's CHARITY. 

In 1773, Elizabeth Bent bequeathed out of the residue of her 
personal estate the sum of ^300, in trust that the interest thereof 
should be annually paid to the Warden and Fellows of the Collegiate 
Church for support of a school in the Old Church-yard, and she 
further directed that another sum of £bO should be placed out to in- 
terest on good and sufficient security, the profits whereof should be 
annually distributed by the Boroughreeve, on Christmas da}^ towards 
the support of poor house-keepers not chargeable to the town ; alike 
sum of ^50 for the poor of Cheetham township, and another like sum 
for the poor of Prestwich i:)arisli. 

" The interest" say the Charity Commissioners, " on the legacy 
of three hundred pounds, and on the two several sums of £50 for 
Manchester poor and Cheetham poor, was paid up to the year 1801," 
agreeably to the will. From 1776 to 1789 the payment was made by 
one of the Executors. " It was subsequently paid by Mr. John 
Eidgvvay, a Solicitor then living in Manchester, until 1801, when he 
left this country, and nothing has since been jjaid on account of these 
Charities ;" and they subsequently add, *' unless the monies due in 
respect of this Charit}^ can be obtained from INIr. Kidgwa}^ of which 
there seems to be little prospect, they must be considered as irre- 
coverable." J 

* Ibid, 173, 175. f Proceedings of the Council, 1849-50, p. 248, 249. 

i Clianties Report, 178-180. 



(27) JOSEPH champion's charity. 

In 1784, Joseph Cliampion gave to the Cliurcliwardens of Man- 
chester for the time hemg, the sum of ^100 upon trust, to expend the 
interest upon loaves of wheaten bread to be distributed to poor and 
aged inhabitants yearly on St. Thomas' day. The annual sum of 
£7 Is. 6d. is now regarded as a charge upon the Poor Rate, and is 
paid by the Overseers to the Church-wardens. 

This Charity, with those of Dickanson, Alexander, and Percivall 
(Nos. 8, 11, and 12) — amounting in the whole to £70 annually — are 
carried to one account and the whole proceeds are yearly expended 
in shilUng loaves, which are distributed on St Thomas' day, and on 
the Feast of the Epiphany. "^ 

( 28 ) JOSEPH Clayton's chariiy. 

In the same year, Joseph Claj^ton gave £400 to the Churchwardens 
and Overseers upon trust, to expend the interest yearly in the pur- 
chase of bedding and bed-clothes of all kinds, and to distribute 
them amongst poor worthy inhabitants being housekeepers within the 
township of Manchester. In 1825 the fund thus bequeathed stood 
invested in £420, new Four-per-Cents, and about 70 blankets were 
annually distributed. There was also a balance at the bankers of 
£55, at three per cent interest, f 

( 29 ) THOMAS Hudson's charity. 

In 1787, Thomas Hudson gave £500 to his Execi.tors in trust for 
Charles Kenyon, " supposed to be beyond seas in America," on 
condition that he should return to Manchester and properly identify 
himself; and if he should be dead, or should not so identifj^ himself, 
then on trust to invest the same and pay the interest to the Borough- 
reeve in augmentation of the Charities by him distributed. The 
contingency never occurred, and the history of the bequest is, as 
Mr. Xaylias said, J truly instructive. 

The accounts preceding 1797 had been lost. At that date, Jiftt/ 
shillings is entered in the Boroughreeve's account, as received for the 
interest of the leg•ac3^ " From 1800 to 1819, the same sum is entered 
amongst the receipts as having been paid. From that period up to 
1825, no interest was received. Fortunately the descendant of the 
surviving trustee proved a just and honourable man ; he paid the 
legacy and arrears of interest, and invested the same in the names of 
seven trustees nominated by the Boroughreeve." Stock amounting 
to £730 15s. Id., in the Three-per- Cents, was purchased, the interest 
of which is £23 2s. 

(30) DANIEL SHELMERDINe's CHARITY. 

In 1801, Daniel Shelmerdine bequeathed £126 to the tmstees of 
the Independent Chapel, Mosley-street (since removed to Cavendish- 
street), the produce whereof was to be and is distributed on sacra- 
ment days, amongst the poor of that congregation. § 

» Ibid, 194. t Ibid, 182. J Ibid, 147, Kay, uM sup. 

§ Ibid. 178. 



(31) SARAH BREAECLIFFE's CHARITY. 

In 1803, Sarah Brearcliffe gave to her executors the sum of three 
thousand pounds, upon trust, to invest the same as to them should 
seem best, and to apply the income thereof in the maintenance or 
relief of 15 old housekeepers of Manchester or Salford. At the date 
of the Commissioners' Keport, £3,200 Three-and-a half per Cents 
Reduced was standing in the names of the surviving trustees, the 
dividends of which amounted to £112 per annum, and were distri- 
buted amongst fourteen poor women in accordance with the di- 
rections of the testatrix."^' 

The diversified fortunes and the very conflicting results which 
have marked the history of charities, many of which are so similar 
in date and in purpose, cannot but strongly suggest the wisdom of 
considering whether steps might not be taken to assimilate the 
management of the whole to the management of the best among 
them. How various this management has hitherto been will be seen 
at a glance, if the general results be tabulated for the purpose of 
comi^arison : — ■ 











_ 6 

•yii 


Annl. income 


Annual 


Name of Donor. 


P 


£ ^ -■ 


Kow invested. 


at date of 
Charity Inqry. 


int-oma 

in If 48, as 
HL;ted l)v 
Mr. Ka;.-. 




^'o% 




c-3 ^ 

03 


18^5. 




1 £ s. d. 




£ s. d. 


£ s. d. 


£ 3. d. 


1 M. & W. Nu-ent . . 


1609 : . . . . 


Chlff Rents 


2 


None. 




2 Edvv ard Mayes .... 


1621 1 120 


L;ind:s & Houses 




429 18 




3 *George Marshall . . 


1624 




First in Laml, 














aft. in ConsolK. 


[1750] £12 


67 10 


67 10 


4 *Ellen Hartley .... 


1C26 




Ilonse, aft. in 








i 


Cr.nsols. 




[1322] 14 10 


40 16 


5 Nicholas Hartley . . 


1628 50 


IlouiiC. 


[1712] £3 


15 15 




6 *Goor(^e Clarke, . . . 


1636 . . . . 


Land, &c. 


100 


179) 


1970 2 2 


7 John Partington .. 


1677 100 






None. 




8 Henry Dickatition . . 


16S2 100 


House. 




5 




9 Joim BarloM' 


1684 .. .. 




12 00 


None. 




10 li()l;ert button 


I(i87 200 


Land, &c. 




20 




11 Thnmns Percivall.. 


1693 150 






28 




J.-) ( John Alexander > 
" \ and Josli, Brown \ 


^«^^ ll0300} 


Lnnd. 


. . 


30 


. . 


1.3 Thomas Mynshnll.. 




Land, &c. 




51 




14= Hmnplirey Oldfield 


109 J 70 6" 


At Interest. 


3 10 


3 10 




15 *Ellen Shnttlc\vortli 


16^5 1 50 


. . 




2 4 8 


2 4 8 


16 James Moss 


1705 1 100 


Rent Charge. 




5 5 




17 Francis Cartwriglit 


1703 


4ii0 


[To be lent in 
sums of £50 v/ii,h 
Interest; £1,000 
so lent in 1825.] 








18 Catherine Richards 


1711 




Rent Charges. 


100 o'o 


"100 '6 




19 Ann liinde 


17-z3 :L1037 10 0] 


Residue, &c. 




200 




20 William Bagnley . , 


1725 1 200 


Chief Rents. 


8 13"2 


None. 




21 Jane Corles 


1732 


55 


At Interest. 




2 3 


■ ■ 


'22 Roger Sedgwick . . 


1733 


200 


Kent Cliarge. 


8 3' "9 


8 3 9 




23 AiinButterworth,&c 


1735 


171 


Stock. 




8 




24 Elizabeth Scholes.. 


1740 


600 


Do. 




102 


■ ■ 


25 Ellen Nicholson. . . . 


1742 


r2o 


At Interest. 




6 




26 Elizabeth Bent .... 


1773 


450 


Do. 




None. 




27 Joseph Champion.. 


1784 


100 


Do. 




7 16 




28 Joseph Clayton.... 




400 


Stock. 




16 \Q, 




29 ^Thomas Hudson . . 


1787 


500 


Do. 




None. 


23 2' 


30 Daniel Shelmerdine 


ISOt 


126 


At Interest. 




7 02 


31 Sarah Brearcliffe . . 


1803 


3000 


Stock. 


.. '.; 


112 





* Ibid, 182, 183. 



78 

It is to tliose Jive Charities in this table which I have marked by 
an * that the recommendations embodied in Mr. Kay's Letter of 
1848 appl3^ Tlieir total income was then £2,103 15s/4d, and the 
average annual expense of management and income-tax £92 16s. 5d. 
leaving a wei income of £2,010 18s. lid. Mr. Kay's very important 
suggestions are as follows — 

1. — "Looking at the ^oresent state and value of these Charity 
estates and funds, and the income derivable therefrom, I 
would suggest that the whole of the real property' should be 
sold, and also the whole of the property in the public funds. 
From such sales it is confidently anticipated the following 
sums would be realized : — 

£. s. d. 
(i) Clarke's Charity, unimprovable rents,) .oo r-pn q n 

£1,550 8s. 4id. at 25 years' purchase f «5&,^du y u 

(ii) Ditto Farm at 30 years' purchase at] -i nq- r^ r^ 

present rent of £36 10s. Od | ^'^'^'^ ^ " 

(iii) Stockin the public funds £12,289 14s. Od.l ,, QgQ ,Q q 

at 90, j ' 

(iv) Balance in the hands of the bankers, about 1,285 

Total £52,201 2 

Of this sum I would invest ^40,000, in the mortgages or bonds 
of the Corporation of Manchester, at five per Cent interest, 
which, after paying the income-tax, would leave for distribution 
more than i'l/SOO per annum, which amount has for the last 
three years been paid over by the trustees for distribution. The 
residue I would lay out in a real estate near Manchester, 
about the same distance from the Town Hall as those origin- 
ally given by the founder. There are several such estates now 
in the market for sale, which would pay three per cent on the 
outlay, with the certainty of bscoming in less than half a 
century, as productive as the estate in Crumpsall has proved 
to be. The rental received from this estate I would emj)loy 
in making roads, and otherwise laying out the proj)erty for 
building upon. This course would, in fact, be a repetition of 
Mr. Clarke's gift, and, I entertain no doubt whatever, would, 
under similar management, be attended ^vith the same results 
which have so happily followed the course taken by his 
trustees. 
2. — "If it should be urged, that these objects cannot be accom- 
plished without the authority of Parliament, I reply that the 
sooner an Act is obtained for the purpose the better; and 
that the expense attendant on such an application would be 
amply repaid in the increased efliciency of the charitable 
funds. 

" If timid persons should affect to throw^ doubt on the security 
aftbrded by the mortgages or bonds of the Corporation of Man- 
chester, it^may be replied that such an investment is quite as 
safe as in the public funds; it is less subject to fluctuation 



70 

and will incur muoli less expense of management. With re- 
spect to the fom' other Charities, — whose annual income 
and funds stand as follows : — 

Annual Income. Principal Fund. 

je. s. d. £. s. d. 

Marshall's Charity 67 10 2,750 

Shuttleworth's , 2 4 8 55 18 2 

Hudson's „ 23 2 730 15 

Hartley's „ 40 16 6 1,360 19 5 

^133 13 2 £4,897 12 7 

I would offer the same suggestion, — that the stock should be 
sold and the produce invested in the Corporation mortgages or 
bends, by which course an addition of about eighty pounds 
per annum would be made to the income of these charities. 
8. — " I would further suggest that to avoid in future the expense 
of appointing new trustees, the principal funds of these four 
last-named charities should be at once vested in the Mayor, 
Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough, as the trustees of 
the several charities ; as a corporate body its continuance 
would prevent the constant recurrence of new appointments 
of trustees, with the expense always incident thereto ; and at 
the same time all expense of management, bankers' commis- 
sion, and solicitors' charges, would be saved." 

When the period shall come for dealing with the entire question of 
the Minor Local Charities, these suggestions will be sure to receive 
that delibe: ate consideration they are so well entitled to. Nor can 
it be doubted — from evidence already patent to us all — that the 
Charitable Trusts Committee and the Council will be prepared to take 
such steps as matured public opinion on this subject may in due 
time demand. 



EPILOGUE. 



THE MORAL OF THE STORY. 

To deduce the full moral of the tale which I have thus attempted 
briefly to tell, would require an older and a wiser head than mine. 
Two lessons, however, seem to lie upon the surface : the one, that in 
the prosecution of any measures for further reform and further adap- 
tation to altered circumstances there must be an union of large and 
liberal tolerance for diversities of faith and conflicts of opinion, with 
firm and unconquerable energy in the extinction of proved abuses. 
The other, that no improvements in the management or machinery 
of our charitable and educational trusts will be worth a tithe of the 
labour they are sure to cost, unless secure provision be made for the 
constant publicity of the accounts and of the proceedings of those 
who govern them, be they whom they may. On the one hand, a narrow 
and sectarian spirit can nowhere be more glaringly out of place than 
in dealing with institutions whose muster-roll of founders and of 
benefactors embraces men of all creeds in the Christian Church, and 
of all parties in the Political Commonwealth. And, on the other, 
unless public opinion be brought to bear thoroughly and persistentl}-- 
on Trustees and Feoffees, even the improvements that ma,y come to 
be effected — in one instance, perhaps, by the special exertions of an 
energetic member of the board, or of some public-spirited citizen, or 
in another by some casual excitement of the community, aroused, it 
may be, almost by chance — will prove incomplete and transitory. 

It is, in truth, because public opinion has not hitherto been 
brought to bear on the questions affecting them, that we find 
Chetham's Foundation prospering in one branch but decaying in 
another ; the Grammar School so managed as to necessitate a liti- 
gation, lasting thirteen years and costing £0,000, in order to bring it 
into some degree of correspondency with new wants and new cir- 
cumstances ; and the noble benefaction of William Hulme so em- 
barrassing his trustees by the ra^jid growth of its income, as to lead 
them to incur the cost of three several Acts of Parliament within 
a quarter of a centurj-, in order to divert his bounty into a channtd 
which the donor never contemplated. 

Chetham's trustees have not published a single account of income 
or expenditure for five-and-twenty yeai-s. The accounts of the Free 
Grammar School could only be obtained b}- resort to the Court of 
Chancery. "No accounts of Hulme's charity," says Mr. Kay. "have 
been published since 18-28 ;"- and Mr. Bright, as I'have shewn, failed 

* Minutes of Evidence before Manchester and Salford Education Committee. 21st Jane, 
1852." Q. 2,412, 2,413, p. 396. 



81 

to obtain an account of the specific expenditure in the purchase of 
church Uvings even after carrying a motion to that effect in the 
House of Commons. John Owens, on the other .hand, with wise 
foresight, expressly directed that his trustees should, at the expense 
of the trust estate, once at least in every year, publish a true, 
full, and plain account of receipt and expenditure, or a complete 
and intelligible abstract thereof "once, at least, in two newspapers 
for the time being published and circulated in the said borough of 
Manchester."* For security, both against the actual malversation 
of trust, and against that silent neglect which springs from careless 
trusteeship (less stigmatized by the Courts but equally fatal to the 
charity), there is no expedient half so good as that of thorough, 
frequent, and systematic publicity. 

The best portion of the ''Act for the better Administration of 
Charitable Trusts," which was passed at the close of the session of 
1853, is the provision it makes to facilitate the securing of this 
publicity by those who will be at the pains of seeking it. The ma- 
chinery of the Act itself, like that of so many other Acts, partakes 
a great deal too much of the tendency to place all institutions and 
all persons at the mercy of that most fortunate of mortals (as 
Sydney Smith was wont to call him), the barrister of twelve years' 
standing; but the following clauses, which cannot be too widely cir- 
culated, will he the seed-plot of vast improvement in the working of 
our public charities, if the right use be made of them : — 

" X. The said Board [of Charity Commissioners] may require all 
trustees or persons acting, or having any concern in the ma- 
nagement or administration of any charity, or the estates, 
funds, or projjerty thereof, to render to the said Board, or to 
their inspectors, or either of them, accounts and statements, 
in writing, in relation to such charity, or the . . . property, 
income, monies, . . . management, and application thereof. 

" XVI The said Board shall receive and consider all applications, 
. . . and. give such opinion and advice as they think expe- 
dient, . . . and every trustee or other person who shall act 
upon, or in accordance with the opinion and advice so given 
, . . shall have . . . indemnity. . . . 

" LXI. The trustees, or persons acting in the administration of 
every charity, shall . . . regularly enter, or cause to be en- 
tered, full and true accounts of all money received and paid 
. . . and . . . every year . . . shall cause . . a clear state- 
ment ... of such account ... to be sent ... to the clerk 
of the county court for the district . . . wherein, or nearest 
adjoining whereto, such charity is established, or the property 
thereof . . . situate . . . [which account and balance-sheet] 
shall be open to the inspection of all persons, at all seasonable 
hours, on payment of the sum of one shilling . . . for such 

* Extract of the will of .John Owens, Esq., in " Proceedings of the Council of the Borough 
of Manchester, 1846," p. II. 



82 

inspection ; and eveiy person may require and have a copy 
. . . paying therefor . . . after the rate of twopence for 
every seventy two words or figures." ... 

The Charitable Trusts Act has, during the present session of 
Parhament, been importantly amended. In introducing the amend- 
ment Bill into the House of Lords (in April last) the Lord Chancellor 
stated, that although the Commissioners were not appointed until the 
autumn of 1853, they had, during 1854, received no fewer than 1100 
applications with regard to Charitable Trusts, and he proceeded to 
argue, that "in questions of a minor nature the great object was to 
have the funds administered with tolerable discretion, even if not in 
strict conformity with the letter of the trusts." That most important 
and beneficial power (of waving the letter, when needful to secure 
the spirit of the trust in question) had, he said, been very largely exer- 
cised. But that other important power which enabled the Commis- 
sioners to call for distinct accounts of Charities had not been complied 
with hy anything liJce the uhole of the Charitable Trusts of the kingdom. 
They had received returns only for about 10,000 out of 25,000 trusts; 
and it ivas obviously necessary that some legal interference should take 
place in that matter. With more extensive powers the Board could 
be rendered far more efficient. And he proposed by the Bill of 1855, 
to make the following provisions : — 

1. — To sanction the ai^pointment of a third permanent Commis- 

sioner. 

2. — To give the Commissioners power themselves to do such acts 

as may need to be done in the improvement of the trusts 
brought under their revicAV, instead of confining them, as by 
the Act of 1853, to authorizing the trustees to apply to some 
Court of Law or of Equity The action thej^ may take in any 
case, will, however, continue to be subject to ai^peal in 
Chancery. 

3. — To give powers to make an apportionment of Parochial 

Charities in certain cases. 

4. — To give increased facilities for enabling trustees to make useful 

and expedient changes, or partitions, of trust property. 

5. — To treat defaults in complying uith the requirements of the Com- 

missioners for clear and distinct accounts of Charitable Trusts as 
contempts of the Courts of Chancery. [That being in the Lord 
Chancellor's opinion a very efficient means of compelling 
trustees to comply with the injunction of the law.] 
6. — To extend the operation of the Act to Roman Catholic Chari- 
ties (which, in the Act of 1853, had been specially excepted 
for two years).'^ 

But it may fairly be asked, if provisions, such as these, for a 
cheaper, speedier, and more accessible adjudication of those legal 
questions which so often obstruct more prudent investments and 
wiser management, are just and equitable — sound in principle and 

* speech of the Lord Chancellor, 16th April, 1835, in Hansard, 3rd series, vol. 137, pp, 
14G 1-1469, Since these pages \\^cnt to press the bill has received the Roral assent. 



S3 

useful in practice, — wliy should some of tlie most important clauses 
be restricted to charities 'of which the gross annual income for the time 
being, does not exceed thirty jyounds V For the present, it appears, we 
must be content, in all other cases, with recourse, as of old, to the 
tender mercies of the Court of Chancery. In this respect, a new 
Amendment Act is imperatively needed, and cannot be long with- 
held. 

If, then, the " Charitable Trusts Act," as now improved and 
amended — Avitli the certainty of a further, and it may be hoped a 
speed.y, amendment yet to come, as regards the range of charities to 
be embraced by it, — be properly worked, it will afford ample means 
of effecting many useful reforms. And other measures are fast 
ripening, which will assuredly work consentaneously with it, in the 
same direction. The principle of an Education-rate is making rapid 
strides in public opinion, and its progress would have been quicker 
but for the repeated attempts which have been made to connect that 
sound principle with a meddlesome, obstructive, and obnoxious 
centralization of authority over the working of it, in a Government 
department. It is now becoming pretty apparent, in London as 
well as in Manchester, that there will have to be a liberal and 
confiding recognition of the just rights and of the proved efficiency 
of local bodies, properly elected and thoroughly responsible. The 
government department, too, v^^ill have its fitting sphere of action 
when the proposal (urged so persistingly, session after session, in 
face of all discouragements, by Mr. William Ewart) of a responsible 
and catechizable Minister of Education, in lieu of the present ano- 
malous " Committee of Council," shall have been carried into effect. 
Thorough and frequent inspection ; clear, concise, and widely circu- 
lated reports from the inspectors, are as plainly the functions of the 
central government, as management and expenditure are those of the 
local boards. 

How these boards shall be nominated and elected, is a question 
to which I here allude simply for the purpose of suggesting, that if it 
shall hereafter in corporate towns be found advisable — as I believe 
it will, — to unite in the same board members of the Corporation 
with other persons differently elected, it may well be worth 
while to consider whether a similar step might not advantageously 
be taken in respect of the management of the local charities. If our 
review of the history of such charities in Manchester — and especially 
of the history of the minor ones — prove anything at all, it surely 
proves that mere unity of authority, so that it be conspicuous and 
responsible, can scarcely of itself fail to cure many abuses which 
have crept in by lapse of time and change of circumstance. But to 
effect this wisely and well, means must be taken to represent the 
WHOLE COMMUNITY — tliosc wlio foudly cliug to the Past, as well as 
those whose delight it is to live by anticipation in the Future, — those 
who venerate so extremeh'- the worthies of bygone days, as to hold 
very cheaply every man who had not the good fortune to be born 
before the "Great Rebellion,"- — as well as those who devoutly believe 
that wisdom will be buried in their own graves. 

The long roll of the "Founders" and other Worthies of Man* 



84 

Chester, is one of wliicli any town might be proud. Nor is it matter 
of small interest to note how many are the links which bring into 
connection those whose date of existence, mode of life, social position, 
and whole environments were so widel}^ diverse. The best of the 
Manchester Founders have been as anxious to remove abuses 
from the old institutions of their predecessors, as to found new ones 
which seemed to them to be still needful. Humphrey Chetham was 
as trulj' a benefactor to his townsmen when he was resisting Warden 
Murray and seeking a new charter for the Old Church, as when he 
was laying the foundation of the noble charity which has embalmed 
his name. Sir Thomas Potter and his co-relators, in 1833, were 
working in the true spirit of Hugh Oldham, and of Hugh Beswicke, 
when they prayed the Court of Chancery " that a plan might be 
settled for the permanent administration of the Grammar School 
Estates, and for the conduct, discipline, and studies of the school, 
having regard to the altered habits of the times, the greatl}^ aug- 
mented value of the estates, and the exigencies of the inhabitants of 
Manchester." 

The stranger who visits our Town Hall sees with interest the 
portraits of the men who have rendered distinguished services to this 
community, not only by their conscientious discharge of eminent 
Corporate offices, but by the removal of old abuses, and by the estab- 
lishment of new institutions, which may one day — in their due 
place — be chronicled as admiringly as those of the La Warres, the 
Oldhams, and the Chethams of olden time. But the exhibition 
Avould be a more interesting one if it included these elder wcrthies 
also, and thus visibly recognized that continuity of existence, which 
has made the entrenched Camp of the Romans, the wooden Village 
of the Saxons, the dingy, narrow laned, but thriving Town of the six- 
teenth century, and the great commercial city, whose merchants are 
princes, and whose enterprise links together the remotest sjiots on 
the habitable globe, still the identical Manchester, the streets of 
w^hich we are treading to-day. 

The man who can look Avithout any reverent feeling on that statue 
of Humphrey Chetham, which has recently added new beauty to our 
Cathedral, or who can pass wholly unregardful over the grave of a 
" Founder" like William Hulme, may well stand aloof from any eftoi-t 
to give increased efficiency to the Library of the one, or to check the 
wasteful expenditure of the bounty of the other. He may be a very 
prosperous man of business, and many may be the greetings and 
respectful the salutations that await him on ' Change.' But if he be 
so l3esottedly engrossed in the pursuit of private gain, — so rich in pelf 
and so poor in intellect — as neither to strive himself to achieve some- 
thing for the public, nor lend any furtherance to the efforts of others ; 
if he give no helping hand either for the recoveiy of a decaying institu- 
tion, or for the establishment of a desiderated one, of him, it should be 
recorded, instead of an epitaph: — He held in no honour the inemorij of 
the henejicent dead. He established no claim to the gratitude of Posterity. 
May his own name fall into speedij oblivion. He forgot the Past; may 
the Future forget Him. 



85 

He, on the other hand, will assuredly have his enduring place in 
the grateful memory of tha Manchester to come, who, being blessed 
v,'ith large means and influential position, and feeling that wealth 
has its obligations as intensely as ever a Montmorency felt the truth 
of the proudly humble motto, Noblesse oblige, shall recognise in that 
gross abuse by Avhich it has been attempted to divert the noble 
benefaction of Hulme from its proper channels, the opportunity to 
secure for Manchester the foundation of a true University, — in 
which provision shall be made for the cultivation of the whole man ; — 
in wdiich a reverent and loving appreciation of all that is good in 
antiquity shall be united with just regard for the wants of our own 
day, and prescient provision for the inevitable claims of the future ;— 
the main aim and end of which shall be the rearing, not alone of 
skilful and learned men for the professions, and of well-informed and 
energetic men for mercantile life ; but (in the expressive and com- 
prehensive w^ords of one of the ' bidding prayers'), — " a due supply of 
men fitted to serve their countnj both in Church and State." 

Such an University w^ould sedulously strive to meet all the just 
demands of the active and enterprising times in wdiich we live ; it 
would make all possible provision for the thorough study of Com- 
merce, and of Practical Science in all departments ; but it would also 
proclaim that there are better and higher things than these. It 
would assert in the hearing of all men that " Commerce is not King,"* 
but is the invaluable servant of a quite difterent sort of Monarch ; 
that it is truly a great thing to provide a thoroughly efficient training 
for the Counting-house and the Mart ; for the Laboratory and the 
Surgery; for the Court of Law and for the Camp; but a much 
greater thiiig so to educate men as to make them not only good men 
of business, — whatever their calling, — but good citizens — wherever 
their lot may carry them,— true Patriots — whatever their Party, — 
and devout Christians — whatever their Denomination. 

* " CoMMEECE IS King," has been for a number of years the motto carried— outside and 
iH— -by a widely-circulated Mercantile Magazine. 



APPENDIX A. 



LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHOEITIES CITED OR EEFEEEED TO IN 
THE PRECEDING PAGES. 

( 1 ) JReports of the Commissioners appointed to Inquire concerning 
Charities, dc. i^Sixteentli and Twenty-first Reports.) Fol. 
London: 1826-29. 

(2) History of the Foundations in Manchester of Christ's College, 
Ghethains Hospital, and the Free Grammar School. By 
Samuel Hibbert Ware, M.D., and W. R. Whatton, F.S.A. 
3 vols. 4to. Manchester: 1828—1830. 

(3) The Ancient Parish Church of Manchester, atid uhy it was 
Collegiated. By S. Hibbert Ware, M.D. 4to. Manchester: 

1848. 

(4) The Collegiate Church of Manchester, from its Foundation 
in ] 842 to the present time. By R. C. Clifton, M.A., Canon 
of Manchester. 8vo. Manchester: 1850. 

(5) Letters on the Collegiate Parish Church of Manchester. By 
Thomas Turner, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn. 8vo. London: 
1850. 

(6) The Manchester Grammar School ; a Sketch of its History ; 
with an Examination of the Points involved in the recent 
Liiigation. By an Old Scholar. 12mo. Manchester : 1849. 

(7) B ibliotheca Chethamensis : sive Bihliothecm puhlicce Mancu- 
niensis ah Humfredo Chetham fundatm Catalogus. Edidit 
Joannes Radcliffe, M.A. [With Supplement by W. P. 
Greswell, M.A.] 3 vols. 8vo. Manchester: 1791— 1826. 

(8) Borough of Manchester: Proceedings of the Council for the 
years IS4.Q1 — 1853-4. 8yo. Manchester. 1847—54. 

( 9 ) An Act fo7 the better Administration of Charitable Trusts. 
16 & 17 Vic. c. 137. (20 August, 1853.) 



87 

(10) A7i Act for the further Amendment of the Law 'relating to 
Charitable Trusts. 18 & 19 Vic. (August, 1855.)" 

(11) Hulme's Charity: A Letter to Benjamin Nicholls, Esq., 
Mayor of Manchester : Sc. By Alexander Kay. 8vo. Man- 
chester, 1854, 

(12) The Manchester Guardian, 1 May, 1847, Article : Chetham's 
Library — Ee-arrangement of the Books; — 28 May, 1853, 
Article: The Bi-Centenary of Humjihrey Chetham; — April 
and May, 1855, Articles: Trusts and Trustees; snad Hulme's 
Trust. 

(13) First and Second Reports of the Charity Commissioners for 
England and Wales, made in jnirsuance of the Act 16 <f 17 
Vic. c. 137. Fol. London, 1854-55. 

(14) The Chetham Papers. 1616-1660. (MS.) 



APPENDIX B. 



REGULATIONS AND INSTRUCTIONS CONCERNING APPLICATIONS TO THE 
CHARITY COMMISSIONERS FOR ENGLAND AND WALES, UNDER 
"THE CHARITABLE TRUSTS ACT, 1853" 16 & 17 VTC. C. 137.) 

APPLICATIONS FOR INQUIEY OR RELIEF RESPECTINa AKY CHARITY. 

1. Any person or persons having reasonable grounds may apply 
to the Board for inquiry or relief with respect to any charity. 

2. The application should be in writing, addressed to the Com- 
missioners, and signed by the applicants, who should add their 
respective professions, occupations, or qualities, and residences. 

3. No precise form is necessary ; but the usual designation of the 
charity, and the name of the parish, town, or jolace for the benefit 
whereof the charity was founded, or in which it is administered, and 
the names, professions, or occupations, and residences of the trustees, 
or persons acting in the management or administration, should be 
stated in all cases. Such facts and circumstances as will suffi- 
ciently explain the nature and object of the application should also 
be stated. 

4. A separate application should be made for each charity, ex- 
cept where several charities are administered together under one 
scheme or system of management. 



o. On receipt of an application, the Board will make such inquries 
and adopt such proceedings as the case may require. 
6. A form of initiatory application is subjoined. 

rOEM OF INITIATORY APPLICATION. 

To the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales. 

si^JaTo^oV^reSX"^^^^^^ I^ '^'^ ^^"^^ °^ the Charity called* in 

name of the parish, township, ^.i . ^f 

or place for the benefit whereof ^^^ "^ 

the charity was founded, or in • . , pn„ntv of 

which it is administered. i" ^'^^ couniy oi 

The following statements are submitted fcr the consideration of the 
Board: — 

The applicants should state 1, 
here concisely, and, as far as 
conveniently may be, in num- q 
bered paragraphs, the circum- 
stances and the particular 
objects of the application. 3, &C. 

I (or we) declare that the above statements are in all respects true, 
according to my {or our) information and belief. 



Dated this day of 185 



t The applicants should here 
sign their names, adding their 
professions or occipations and 
residences. 



Gait, Kerruish, & Gent, Printers, 28, New Cannon-street, Manchester. 



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